It's not that important but....

Website

2010-12-30T18:34:00.001Z

Ok, I am going to stop posting on here and use my website properly. I am going to use it as on opportunity to bring all my interweb stuff to together, blog, allotment blog and podcast will all be together. Thank you to everyone who has read me here.
The URL for the website is www.martynnorris.co.uk.

Christmas Songs

2010-12-22T19:00:00.001Z

So it's nearly Christmas (I'm sure you already now that but it you don't, it's in 3 days time so best you go and buy some presents) and I have written some songs, well 2. Just the words though, I have stolen the tunes. It's just a bit of fun.

How about this to the tune of “We Wish a Merry Christmas,” it's called “We wish you would find that Boson,”

We wish you would find that Boson,

We wish you would find that Boson,
We wish you would find that Boson with your big round machine.

We need to find out what gives us all mass

Then we can blame something other than many mince pies.

Oh bring us the conditions
oh bring us the conditions

Oh bring us the conditions for the beginning of time

We won't know until we smash them
we won't know until we smash them
we won't know until we smash them at immensely high speed

We wish you would find that Boson,
We wish you would find that Boson,
We wish you would find that Boson with your big round machine.

And this one to the tune of “Frosty the Snowman”, it's called “Humble the Woo Man.”

For a little background on Jim Humble may I suggest you have a look here and here.

Anyway on with the songs,

Humble the Woo Man was a very naughty man
with his cooked up facts and his made up church
he became a massive pain.

Humble the Woo Man is a Miracle they say
he made some claims but the skeptics know
that his science was astray

There must have been some magic in the odd things that he said
cos when typed and flapped his mouth, his believers danced around.

He said “it's mostly oxygen and something that's in salt,
it'll cure most things in the world and is very sanely priced.

Humble the Woo Man wasn't believed by everyone,
when a boy named Rhys bought up concerns
they tried to shout him down.

Humble the Woo Man caimed it wasn't bleach
but the FDA and the ASA
seemed to disagree.

Ok, the last one is a bit of a work in progress but it's fun(ish).

There is a nice Christmassy DORC podcast here which is quite fun. I hope you all have a lovely Christmas.

BAN THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-12-13T10:21:00.000Z

Do you have a small, ignored extremist organization? Do you want to have more publicity than you deserve? Then you need Theresa May!

All you have to do is make a couple of stupid statements about Islam, threaten to burn a few copies of a religious book and then say that you are going to come to Britain to talk to some barely literate racists and the Home Secretary will do the rest!

Have we really not learnt that banning idiots such as the Pastor Terry Jones (no, not the ex-python) from our delightful shores does more to increase their profile than just allowing them to land say they stupid things to a bunch of idiots and then go home again?

There are of course many intellectual arguments to be made for this being a freedom of speech issue and other will make them more coherently and succinctly than I but I will say this, if we have the freedom of speech that we are supposedly having to defend from nasty terrorists who are jealous of our way of life, than this self-promoting, tiny minded douchebag must be allowed to come here and spout his misinformed nonsense to a bunch of people so stupid that they can’t even decided on a decent haircut, “Oh, I went for the skin head too, we look like twins.” And then comprehensively ignored.

Perhaps another example is needed here. Without the hysterical reporting would you have heard of Islam4UK? They wanted publicity for their silly group and decided that the best way to do it was to go to the repatriation events for British Serviceman in Wootton Basset and shout offensive things and, maybe, have a bit of a march. Now that was a plan.

Every news organization in country said that these people were awful and that they should not be allowed to say such terrible things about “our boys” whilst simultaneously broadcasting hours of footage and interviews with their leader Anjem Choudary say those exact things on national television. If they had just ignored him then only the poor people unfortunate enough to be within ear shot of him in Wiltshire would have had to suffer this duffus.

When Islam4UK was banned as an organization for saying stupid things did they go home and think about what they had done? No, they changed their name and carried on but now they have better press contacts.

The same goes for this idiot Jones, if he hadn’t have received wall to wall coverage for threatening to burn some books then I would never have heard of him and neither would you, unless of course you are one of the tiny number (50 people according to Wikipedia) that actually go to this dickwads church.

Do you want to know a fun fact? Neither of the 2 groups mentioned here actually did the thing that they threatened to. Terry Jones Church didn’t burn any Qua’ans and Islam4UK didn’t go ahead with their march but they got a spectacular amount of free publicity for themselves, their stupid organizations and ideas and all from people who say that they shouldn’t be allowed to say the things that they are saying.

So should Mr Jones come here? If he wants too, yes. Should he speak to the barely sentient members of the EDL? If he wants to, yes. Should we cover him and his visit in every single news outlet that we have? No, ignore him and he’ll stop.

I’ll leave you with this thought; did Radio 1 banning “Relax” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood stop it from getting to number 1 in the hit parade?

It's Like Being Told There's No Santa

2010-12-12T10:06:00.000Z

This is a snippet of the conversation that took place between LibDem MP John Hemming and Radio 4’s always brilliant Eddie Mair on Tuesday’s PM. Mr Hemming’s constituency office had been occupied by student protesters who where more than a little pissy about his party’s U-turn over their definite pledge not to increase tuition fee,

EM: How are you going to vote on Thursday?
JH: At the moment I’m very likely to vote for the increase simply because we cannot reward the bad behaviour from today. I have … [interrupted]
EM: Just a second. Part of your thinking might be to punish protesters?
JH: The problem you’ve got is this. If you reward this form of behaviour, if it has any effect which is a positive effect, you’re encouraging the behaviour in the future.
EM: Part of the reason you’re going to reach your decision is based on the protests?
JH: Part of the reason has to be based on the protests because I cannot allow that to influence me in any favourable manner whatsoever.

And that was it; if you’d have listened very carefully you could have hear my heart breaking.

I have hung on as long as I could and have tried to understand their role within the coalition but I just couldn’t do it any more. I am no longer a Liberal Democrat.

Well, in spirit I am I suppose but in a direct, financial, card carrying way I am not. I have cancelled my membership of the party. I still share many of the goals and ideas that the grass roots members hold dear but I feel that we all have been let down/betrayed by the leadership.

I did not vote for and give money to a party that wanted raise tuition fees, part privatise vast sections of the NHS, make massive cuts in public spending (including welfare cuts, cuts in local council budgets, rise in state pension age and, oddly for Tories, cuts in Defence spending), constantly attack, undermine and take money from the BBC, sell off forests and not punish bankers who got us into this position in the first place (I mean a 0.05% levy is nothing, 0.75% would pay off the deficit) yet that is what they are enabling the Tories to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the party is a collection of people with different ideas and points of view and that it is not there just for me and it’s not as if I signed up to all of their ideas 100% but I definitively did not vote for the Conservative party which is what we have. I struggle to find any LibDem influence on the policies of the coalition.

I want to make it clear that this is not just a childish, knee jerk or petulant reaction to the situation but it is a consider action, the tuition fees debacle was just the cherry on top of a less than tasty looking cake and Mr Hemming was the straw that broke this mixed metaphor’s back.

This brings a new problem, who to vote for next time? Suggestions on a postcard please.

To cheer myself up, let’s do some awards,

The Award for Worst Short Cut of the Week,

This has to go to who ever decided that it might be a good idea to take Charles and Camilla home from the Royal Verity Performance through the middle of a riot.

They didn’t look happy, although they had just seen Michael McIntyre and Cheryl Cole so what can you expect?

The Award for Best Use of Police Time of the Week,

We keep being told that we face multiple terror treats from absolutely everywhere but, as usual, we look without rather than within. Thank the Lord then for the police of Oxfordshire. These dedicated officers are never taking their collective eyes off of the metaphoric ball.

What dedicated cell of terrorist fundamentalists have they broken? Was it Al-Qaida, the Real IRA or ETA? Umm, no, it is the type that advertises it’s self on Facebook and is organised by a 12 year old of course.

Nicky Wishart, a pupil at Bartholomew School, Eynsham was interviewed by Thames Valley police and the school was contacted anti-terrorism after he was planning to picket David Cameron's constituency office.

He was taken out of his lessons and, speaking to the Guardian, said: "In my lesson, [a school secretary] came and said my head of year wanted to talk to me. She was in her office with a police officer who wanted to talk to me about the protest. He said, 'if a riot breaks out we will arrest people and if anything happens you will get arrested because you are the organiser'."He said even if I didn't turn up I would be arrested and he also said that if David Cameron was in, his armed officers will be there 'so if anything out of line happens ...' and then he stopped."

Scaring 12 year olds, nice, you must be very proud of yourselves. Sleep soundly in your beds British citizens of the UK because your Police force is here to protect you (by abusing their power, illegally, possibly, interviewing a child and insinuating threats of violence).

In the run up to Christmas time is precious (my mince pie production line takes up a lot of time) and this is true for nearly all of us so not much blogging or podcasting for a little while. There will definitely be no blog next Sunday because we will be in that London. We are seeing Robin Ince’s 9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People on Saturday evening and are very much looking forward to it.

Have a lovely week.

So Bribery is OK Then?

2010-12-05T11:03:00.003Z

Ah, the children of Dorchester how my respect for you grows. Wednesday night saw the town’s late night Christmas shopping event. Charity stalls and the like lined the street (and one stall from some church or other that claimed to be “Radically Inclusive”, what the hell does that mean? Am I a member against my will?), good cheer abounded, live music played out and it was fun.

Half way up the high street was a puppet show. A puppet show that was trying to link the virgin birth of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ and….. wait for it…… the X factor. A bit of a stretch, “and Jesus had the X factor” well, that’s a no from me what do you think Cheryl?

Despite the lure of free mince pies it had basically attracted three under 5’s, some cold looking parents and a dog from the Save the Greyhounds stall just down the road. Dorset County Museum, on the other hand, which had some people dressed up as Sci-Fi characters was rammed.

Now some may say that this is because it was very cold and the people were just in the museum because it was warm, I on the other hand would like to think it was a proof that Dorchester’s children care far more for Daleks and Darth Vader than they do for the sky fairy.

So we wanted be hosting the World Cup in 2018 but lost out to Russia, bit of a shame but hey, we would only have complained about it endless anyway.

So what was it that lost us the bid? If you read the Daily Mail, which I really hope none of you do, then it may have been the video presentation to FIFA from the FA that was the problem.

The video attempted to show how the Premiership is the biggest and most supported league in the world, and this lead, in the words of the Mail to a “very un-English presentation”. By this they seem to mean it has lots of people who aren’t white, well that’s the insinuation from the photographs they have chosen to illustrate the article with.

The article opens with “Gosh, didn't we look global. So multicultural, so diverse” and then goes on to complain about the lack of clichéd stereotypes in the film and as we know, there is nothing that the Mail likes more than a clichéd stereotype.
They also complain about the soundtrack of the piece which is Elbow’s One Day Like This. To quote the Mail “Someone remarked that the lead singer sounded as if he was yawning.” Now, they can be as racist as they like (obviously they can’t that is just a joke) but I will not except any form of criticism of the lovely Guy Garvey. You have pushed me too far this time Daily Mail! I am writing a stern letter to your Editor, now where is my favorite green crayon?

The other theory is that it was the British press that lost us the bid. Note how few people are saying, “maybe the bid wasn’t very good or maybe FIFA wanted to go to Russia because they hadn’t been there before”.

Anyway back to the villain of the peace, our press. We have a free press in this country and this, when all things are taken into consideration, is a good thing so if the BBC wants to run a program that claims that FIFA officials took bribes then it damn well should and if the Sunday Times wants to claim that too then hurray for them.

Both organizations were attacked for running/broadcasting their pieces, some going as far as to call them “unpatriotic”. Is exposing corruption unpatriotic or do these people want us to turn a blind eye to illegality?

If this week has shown us anything it is that the British Establishment (I don’t think I have ever used that phrase before) really doesn’t mind a bit of bribing if it directly effects us. Corruption when it is by Afghans, bad, corruption by FIFA, we’ll turn a blind eye to it, they might give us the World Cup.

It is an all pervading attitude as well. One of the things to come out of the Wikileaks thing was that British Trade ambassador Prince Andrew doesn’t mind a bit of bribery and is rather resentful of it being investigated. It is reported by Tatiana Gfoeller, Washington's ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, that “he railed at British anti-corruption investigators, who had had the 'idiocy' of almost scuttling the Al-Yamama deal with Saudi Arabia" and he criticized Guardian journalists - "who poke their noses everywhere" - for investigating the deal. Should we investigate corruption? Apparently not because we are involved. Good to know.

Some awards now for this chilly week,

The Award for Clearly Being Set Up By Your Daughter of the Week,

Celebrity fainter and not a Doctor Gillian Mckeith claims not to have a television yet a producer Nick Johns claims that she wanted a DVD player so that she could watch the X-Factor because she was missing it but that is just an aside. No, no, the fun part comes in an interview with her daughter. Skylar McKeith-Magaziner was interviewed on This Morning and was asked about whether or not her mother had seen the program before to which she answered "No, we don't actually have a TV, so I've just seen some clips, but she has never actually seen the show." Fair enough I suppose but it might be an idea to do a little research, although Gillian is not renowned for doing research. Do you see what I’ve done there, I’ve insulted her work!

Anyway later in the interview Skylar says “Um, well, I kind of forgot about the bushtucker trials”, so she had seen clips of the trials but neglected to tell her mother. Oh that is funny.

The Award for Mass Straw Man Creation of the Week,

This week saw the launch of a campaign by some Christians called “Not Ashamed” which claims that Christians are being discriminated against or barred from involvement in public life. It is supported by Bishop Michael Nazir Ali and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey. That is LORD Carey. He is 1 of 26 Bishops of the Church of England sit in the House of Lords simply because they are Christian bishops.

Anyway, what evidence did they present? Umm, none. Obviously humanist groups thought that this was slightly silly. The British Humanist Association said “The increasingly desperate attempts to work up a victim narrative of “Christianophobia” by these activists have no basis in reality. The assumption behind it is that there is a groundswell of discrimination and persecution of Christians in Britain, but this assumption is false. Time and again the various claims of discrimination against Christians that have been tested in the courts have been assessed by impartial judges and found baseless.”

“Discrimination against non-Christians is in fact far more widespread than discrimination against Christians, and Christianity is still overly privileged in the UK. In almost one third of our state schools, preference is given to Christian parents in admissions over non-Christians, and to Christian staff over non-Christian staff.”

Not a surprise that they think that this is silly but what about other Christian groups? Surely they will be on side, well no and stop calling me Shirley. (RIP Leslie Nielson)

Christian think tank Ekklesia said that there is ‘no evidence’ to back up the ‘Not Ashamed’ campaign.

Ekklesia Co-Director Jonathan Batley commented, “Christians should not be ashamed of our faith but nor should they be afraid to listen to others and learn from them. What they should be ashamed of however, is the reputation that they are developing for exaggeration, misleading people and discriminating against others.
‘Since 2005, when we first predicted the growth in claims of 'persecution', we have been closely examining individual cases and what lies behind them. We have found no evidence to back up the claim of the 'Not Ashamed' campaign that Christians as a group are being systematically marginalised in Britain. We have found consistent evidence however of Christians misleading people and exaggerating what is really going on, as well as treating other Christians, those of other faith and those of no faith in discriminatory ways.”

Well that will be enough seriousness I think.

This week saw the death of Leslie Nielson who I was a bit of a fan of but what clips to show? How about many?

Have a great week. Oh and don’t forget the podcast, you might like it.

Snowpocalypse

2010-11-28T08:31:00.000Z

Over heard as we came out of the cinema this week, “That made no sense to me, although I haven't seen any of the other Harry Potter films or read any of the books.”

It's been another great week for those that bring you your news, Britain has entered Weathergeddon. Last week it was Royal wedding news and this one has ended with endless pretty pictures of the English countryside covered in a thin but beautifying layer of snow.

The 24hr news channels have dispatched poor correspondents to various snowy hilltops and motorways to tell us how dangerous the driving conditions are which always leaves me with the question, how did you get there? This is the closest most of them will get to that coveted War Correspondent post so rather then delivering a considered, dispassionate piece to camera whilst the unit with which they are imbedded are taking fire they get to stand by the M62 just outside of Pontefract making out that they are Scott of the Antarctic,

Those really are some mixed messages that they are sending out, see how pretty it is out there but don't go out, you will die. The snow is back and this time it's personal.

Our newspapers get really very excited by the cold weather but especially the Express.

There are 2 reasons for this, 1) they are able to trot out the meaningless argument, “well, if we've got all this snow then global warming is clearly made up” (although the Met Office disagrees) and 2) most of their readership is so very old that the cold might actually be a problem.

Yes, the cold can present some problems, especially for the elderly, but please, calm down, it's not “The Day After Tomorrow,” it's just some snow.

Let's do some awards now,

The Award for Pointless and Meaningless Survey of the Week,

What happens if you ask a load of xenophobes who read a xenophobic newspaper that feeds them xenophobic stories everyday, many of which are untrue, whether or not they want to be in Europe or not?

The Award for Being Sarah Palin of the Week,

I have some advice for the Democratic Party, let it happen. Get on with doing your thing and if the Republicans want to nominate the awful Palin person then so be it. The more she interviewed and comes under the spotlight, the more she will be shown to be an idiot. Which Korea is your country friendly with Mrs Palin?

If you point out that she is an idiot you will strengthen the resolve of those who are thinking about voting for her and you will just come of as the class bully. Just let the people find out for themselves. Tea Party nutters will vote for her anyway so ignore them; concentrate on what you want to do. Can you imagine the an Obama/Palin debate? Those wavering voters will be put off by her. What you have to worry about is a reasonable Republican candidate.

The Award for Just Being a Massive Douchebag of the Week,

Well you have a choice for this one. You can either have Bryan Fischer, a right-wing Christian journalist, who criticised the giving of the medal of Honour, America's highest military honour, to U.S. Army Sergeant Salvatore Giunta because he saved the life of several colleagues.

Sgt Giunta is said to have ‘exposed himself to withering enemy fire’ as he helped a wounded colleague to safety and rescued another who was being dragged away by Taliban insurgents.

This however is not good enough for self proclaimed “Christain” Fischer who claimed that the medal was being “Feminised” because it was given for saving people rather than killing enemies. Mr Fischer, who writes a column for the American Family Association, said “When we think of heroism in battle, we used to think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements.

That kind of heroism has apparently become passé when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them.

So the question is this: When are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honour once again for soldiers who kill people and break things, so our families can sleep safely at night?’

He added: ‘Our culture has become so feminised that we have become squeamish at the thought of the valour that is expressed in killing enemy soldiers through acts of bravery.' Tosser.

Your second choice is Joe Rehyansky. He is a part-time magistrate and Vietnam veteran of Hamilton County, Tennessee. In writing for the conservative news site The Daily Caller he seems to have suggested that it might be a good idea for Lesbians to serve in the army, with their “medical and administrative specialties”, because all those strapping young men will be able to “cure them” and “bringing them into the mainstream.”

He said “it fell to men to swing through the trees and scour the caves in search of as many women as possible to subdue and impregnate – a tough job but someone had to do it”. Umm, “subdue and impregnate”, does he mean force themselves upon? Does he? Does he mean that straight men should rape lesbians? It does seem that way.

Does he think that gay men should be allowed to join up as well? Don't be silly. He said that the “promiscuity” of gay men, together with HIV, would have “the potential for disastrous health consequences” if gay men were allowed to join up. “Gays spread disease at a rate out of all proportion to their numbers in our population and should be excluded from the military,” he argued. He then went on to say “Shouldn’t the overwhelmingly straight warriors who answer their county’s call be spared the indignity of showering with other men who achieve lascivious enjoyment from the sight of those lithe naked bodies, and who may be tempted to seek more than the view?”

Two things from that sentence, 1) he seemed to enjoy typing it a little too much if you ask me. “lithe naked bodies” indeed and 2) “ overwhelmingly straight warriors,”? Now, does he mean in general or individually? Are most soldiers straight or are all the soldiers mostly straight? Is he saying that everyone in the US Army is a little bit gay? All those buff man in uniforms, it could turn a man's head. Anyway, tosser.

Hat tip to Carmen D’Cruz on twitter for pointing me in the direction of that last story.

The No Shit Sherlock Award of the Week,

Massive stoner and all round lovely bloke Willie Nelson has been arrested for possession. Does this come as a surprise to anyone really? Seriously, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. When doesn't he have dope on him? The arresting officer said that his suspicions were aroused when the bus pulled into a routine checkpoint and he detected a distinctive odour. Of course he did, Willie Nelson was on it. It's a little bit ingrained now.

See, drug laws just don't work. He has been arrested a number of times but has this put him off? No, no it hasn't. It is not a deterrent. Prohibition just doesn't work. If it did then we would have any problems with drugs.

I think that will do for this week. If you have been protesting against the cuts this week, either the various student ones or in Dublin on Saturday, well done you. And there was beginning to think that we all getting a little political disengaged. You make me proud.

People are angry Mr Cameron because their lives are being effected by the actions of a small number of bankers who have suffer but not at all and when they try and exercise their legal right to protest they are treated like criminals by the police and press.

Have a great rest of week and enjoy the snow but if you have an elderly neighbour, make sure they are ok.

Diana Watch

2010-11-21T09:23:00.001Z

At the beginning of this lovely week that has just gone to wherever it is that time disappears to, I was thinking of changing the name of my Sunday posts.
The “Diana Watch” thing stated out as a simple table on my Myspace page (remember them?) that logged the number of times that the “People’s Princess” mysteriously appeared on the front of British newspapers every week despite having died some 9 years before.
I only did this because I found it sort of odd that she (however nice she seemed to be) was still making the front pages. Although, to be fair, most of those front pages were on the Daily Express. And it sort of grew from there.
As I said I was thinking about changing the name because it was starting to look a bit silly. Then Prince William stepped in to the breach to save me from having to think about a new title, 3 cheers for the Prince, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, hip hip……why am I the only one doing this? Is it because about 2 minutes after the second inline to the throne announced his betrothal to Katherine (now referred to as Katherine when journalists ask her questions but Kate in print. It seems that she likes to be called Katherine and not Kate so could the massed ranks of the British media do that please, show some respect for the poor girl’s wishes, after all, you are going to ruin her life in all other ways) the coverage had become so all consuming that you were more then a little bored of it?
Now please do not get me wrong, I am happy that 2 young people want to get married, it’s nice (for them and their families), but the coverage has been so intense that it has almost made me wish for some sort of natural disaster or terrorist scare so that 24hr News can cover something else, even just for a second.
Anyway, it lead to a little flurry of Diana related front pages, it was the ring choice what done it.

The Star is not a paper that has bothered me before. I know that they like boobs and printing pictures of boobs and that they are owned by the same man that owns the Express, Richard Desmond, but apart from that, not much. Oh and they are really bad at fact checking and sometimes print stories from comedy news websites as real stories (see here for details, oh and the original story is still up on their website. Warning that link may contain boobs)
Most mornings I hit the Sky News website for one reason, they have a little section that has that mornings newspapers front pages on it, it’s very useful as you can Right-click and save them should you need them for some reason.
So there I was on Thursday morning when I was presented with this,

Now the basic parts of the story may be true, some boys threaten/bully another boy using the medium of Facebook. The reasons given for the bullying may also be true, although that doesn’t sound like the thought process of any 12 year old that I have ever met who has not been strongly influenced by a grown up or two. This story may be 100% accurate with no exaggeration, no bits made up, no facts given a prominence that they don't deserve but even if it is all true the headline is appalling,
Just read that again, Muslim Thugs Age Just 12 In Knife Attack On Brit Schoolboy. Now this happened at a school in Coventry and it seems that all the children involved in the incident were born in England and therefore English. The article gives us no reason to believe that they aren't.
So what it seems the Star is saying is if you are a Muslim you are not, and cannot be, British. I don't think I'm reading too much into it. Muslim thugs are a defined group and Brit School boy is a separate defined group.
This shocked me if I'm honest but they were kind enough to show me that it wasn't just a one off.

Just there in the top left hand corner, “Christmas “nicked” by Muslims”.

View the article on the papers breast filled website and it has the headline “CHRISTMAS IS HIJACKED BY MUSLIMS AND HINDUS”. These damn funny religions are just like the Grinch it seems. But is it true? Ummm, no.
To quote from the article “Councillors were so anxious not to offend other faiths that they decided to share the Christian display with lights to mark the other celebrations.” and that's it, that's the story. No mention of Muslims at all. Ok it's a bit of a weird decision by the council given as Eid ended on Friday (I think) and Diwali finished 2 weeks ago but that's not the point. There was no pressure from any religion or community group to do this, it was just a council decision and yet somehow this has become “Christmas nicked by Muslims”.
I believe that headline to be a lie. A deliberate attempt to stir up tension between communities. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Is this sort of thing worth a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission? Probably not. The PCC rejected a compliant about a similarly misleading story in the Mail this week; you can read about it here on Tabloid Watch.
So you can lie as much as you like in British journalism as long as it’s about the little people.

Some awards then I think,

The Award for Being Total Douche Bags of the Week,

Do you want to execute Gays for being gay? Well good news, the UN doesn’t mind. To quote from Autostraddle.com “A UN General Assembly Committee just voted to stop including sexual orientation on a list that protects people against discrimination-based arbitrary executions.”
Welcome to the 21st Century, it's OK it execute Gay people again, next up, burning witches at the stake and the return of the inquisition, all now expectable to the UN.

The Award for Unnecessary Intrusion of the Week,

Did you think I was going to leave the Express alone?
Most of the papers ran the same little intrusive article after David and Samantha Cameron visited the school that their son Ivan attended whilst he was alive (the Mail's is particularly voyeuristic). Strangely enough, as I believe it was the first time they had been to the school since he died, they were a little upset so pictures of them crying accompanied the story.
So far, so intrusive, however the Express went a little further, front page and refusing Samantha the dignity of even using her proper name. Mr Cameron gets called David but she, I assume because she is a woman and therefore not worthy of dignity or respect, is referred to be some silly media nickname.

I cannot express (see what I did there) to you how much I hate every single person who works, in anyway, for that nasty, unpleasant “newspaper”.

Lots of complaining and moaning this week, sorry. Will try and be a little more cheerful next time.

Ok, maybe just one funny thing. This has been doing the rounds on Twitter this week and it might make you laugh. It contains some strong language and things that you may find offensive but all the rude and nasty bits were written by people who profess to be Christians. Here is Richard Dawkins reading out some of the hate mail he has received over the years,

I hope you all have a good week.

Ann Widdecombe is not a National Treasure, she's a very nasty woman.

2010-11-08T09:15:00.001Z

Once a year I have to out myself as a fan of Strictly Come Dancing and now is that time. I like dance, that is all.

OK, maybe I should write a little bit more than that.

There is the distinct possibility that one of the most horrid people ever to enter British politics is starting to be thought of favourably. Ann Widdecombe is not, and never will be, a national treasure. It's not just because she is a Tory, it is because she is a particularly unpleasant person all round.

I could just leave it at that but some younger people may just think that she is a shrill voiced, humourless joyspoiler but wait my little naive friends, she is so much less.

She is anti-abortion and seems to have problems with embryonic stem cell research whilst not fully understanding the science behind it. Scientists didn’t want to create a human/animal hybrid Ann.

She is anti-Sex Education.

She advocates only the Police Stopping and Searching only Asian and Black people because “there is a certain form of person who is a danger to society and that sort of person are more likely to fall in to that category then others” despite the fact that most terrorism offences committed on these shores are by White Irish men.

She supports Homophobia as long it's by Religious people (It's free speech you know.)

She supports tougher drug laws.

She seems to think that the Church of England apologising for the Crusades and slavery “makes them look silly”.

She believes in censorship.

She is one the idiot MP's who wanted Terrorism suspects detained for 42 days despite no evidence that it would help investigations in any way.

She is against political parties trying to help get more women into Parliament.

She seems to agree with PETA on some things (they even gave her an award).

She insisted that Tories "throughout the Thatcher period" had always cared about the poor.

In 2007 she earned £310,000 above her parliamentary salary.

She writes for the Daily Express.

She was opposed to the repeal of Section 28.

She is a climate change denier.

She left the Church of England because they started ordinating woman.

In 1996 she defended the Governments policy of shackling pregnant women with handcuffs and chains when in hospital, ~~even when giving birth~~.(turns out that Hannsard says that bit is not true despite what I read else where.)

And on top of all of this, SHE REALLY REALLY CAN'T DANCE!

Although on the plus side she is against fox hunting.

Diana Watch

2010-11-07T11:21:00.000Z

Look, it's very simple, if you don't password protect your Wifi I will use it, hence here we all are. Hello from Kent! Come on in the water's muddy.

I think that I may be becoming a little paranoid. Every time I see a story in the press about changes to the NHS all I can see is a concerted conspiracy to dismantle it by a government that values profit over all over things. It's a subtle(ish) accumulation of things, some within the white paper and some coming from outside.
GP's, who have already been technically privatised and are run for profit, will take over commissioning from the PCT's. They already ignore standard NHS terms and conditions for their staff and, in a letter to the BMJ, it has been pointed out that Foundation Trusts will be also be able to ignore Agenda for Change but that is not really my point here.
The Government have announced this week that NICE will be stripped of it's powers to say which treatments should be available on the NHS and GP's will decided for themselves which drugs they prescribe without any guidance.
A new treatment comes on to the market and NICE review it. Does it work? Is it cost affective? Show me the evidence! If it works then you can prescribe it within the whole NHS and if it doesn't then you can't. Sounds like a good idea to me.
This simple idea has got rid of the “system” that existed before where some Health Authorities prescribed some drugs and others didn't. The press hated it, quite rightly (here for instance is the Daily Mail on that very subject. The first paragraph reads “Patients with cancer, heart disease and mental illness are being denied drugs and lifesaving treatment thanks to a postcode lottery of care in the NHS”), and it was nicknamed “a postcode lottery” i.e., where you lived effected what drugs you could have. It was agreed that this was a bad idea and we needed a centralised system and some joined up thinking and that is what we got.
NICE has been controversial in some areas of the press because they have restricted access to some really expensive, not very effective (or least not any better than existing treatment) drugs, mostly for cancer treatments. In fact, it is the same press that was critical of the postcode lottery that existed before (here for instance is the Daily Mail on that very subject. The first paragraph reads “The scandal of patients being denied drugs just because the NHS rationing body decides they are too expensive will end, ministers have declared.”).
I have a question for these people, what would you do? We don't have unlimited amount of money so we can't do everything, so give us some ideas, all you do is complain and criticise but never offer any alternatives.
Oh, as an aside, a lot of those charities/patient advocacy groups that get quoted in the papers are set up/funded by Big Pharma companies to act as lobbying organisations for certain drugs and treatments.
There are some important practical points in transferring prescribing decisions to GP's such as how do you expect them to keep up with all the new drugs that come to market? There are hundreds of studies a year and they are not always as open and straight forward as they should be. When do they think GP's have time to read all these studies? Aren't they supposed to be seeing patients? If they only read the abstracts of the articles/studies because of time pressures then they will be lead astray as many article abstracts have been shown to misleading.
Anyway, back to my rambling point. So a private company can already set up a GP consortium and now they will be able to prescribe which every drug they like, ignoring such boring, unimportant things as evidence.
This is were my worst case scenario thinking bought me. There is very little standing in the way of a GlaxoSmithKline opening a chain of NHS GP surgeries and prescribing only GlaxoSmithKline drugs. “Have you been to a Glaxo surgery before?”
OK, at the moment there are still a few hopes to be jumped though and barriers to be crossed, fords to be ummmm, forded and boxes to be ticked, but they are mostly PCT based. So we are safe at the moment because the PCT's are quite useful and no one would want to get of them, oh hang on a minute.....

That is all for this week as I'm not really supposed to be doing this.
There will definitely be no blog next Sunday (I know I said that last week but things change) as we will be in Nottingham I think for some art event or other, not sure if I'm honest but I will take pictures and if they are ok I will show you. Have a great week.

Diana Watch

2010-10-31T11:37:00.000Z

Happy Halloween! I do hope you are going to be watching some scary films or doing something else to celebrate. If you have children you better be dressing them up and taking them out trick or treating. It's fun people. Oh and the Mail has a tendency to publish stories about its evilness so it must be good. Oh and Express columnists don't like it either. It just keeps getting better and better. It is also a good excuse to make things and do some fun cooking. Significant Other has carved a pumpkin and we are going to cook a nice dinner.

We went to a friend’s house on Friday evening for dinner and a scary film and they had decorated the house for the occasion. I say again, it's fun.

Do we not need some fun in our lives currently run by Politicians who cut everything and joyspoilers who say things like “Trick or treating is just an American thing, we shouldn't do it”. No you are getting it mixed up with the Iraq war. Stop it. Oh and it's not a very good argument either. “Well we didn't do it in my day. It's a very new thing.” I did it a couple of times when I was little and that was a very long time ago.

Sometimes people make some rather interesting leaps of logic. In an interview with Dorset magazine local artist and stone balancer Adrian Gray says people have made some rather interesting suggestions about how he does what he does, which is balancing a stone on another stone,

Anyway some of the suggestions include glue, blu tack and velcro. They are not just balanced then? Oh no. In fact in an interview with our awful local paper's weekend magazine he said that some one even asked him if he was working in an area of low gravity. It seems that this distortion of the rules of the universe was more likely than some well balanced stones.

This desire to believe/make up incredibly unlikely, physics defying things over perfectly sensible, rational explanations never ceases to amaze me about our species. I know that sciencey types are criticised for taking the mystery out of things but knowing what makes a rainbow doesn't make it any less beautiful. I know, to some extent, how Mount Fuji was formed and how the white stuff on the top was made but that doesn't mean that pictures of it don't take my breath away (haven’t quite got round to seeing it in real life yet). It is a joy to behold. I can look at the evolutionary path of my cats and they are still cute. Significant Other may have a common ancestor with the chimpanzee but she is still pretty and attractive.

Knowledge doesn't make things less mysterious (despite the insistence of the Insane Clown Posse), it helps us to see all the things that we don't know. When I read a book it tells me a very small amount of information and shows so much more that I don't know. The more I learn the more I realise that I don't know and how much more there is to find out about. Why make up more stuff? To quote from Tim Minchin's excellent poem Storm “Isn’t this enough? Just this world? Just this beautiful, complex Wonderfully unfathomable natural world? How does it so fail to hold our attention That we have to diminish it with the invention Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?”

You see it all over society, odd leaps such as “Big Pharma is not always as honest as it could be so therefore is bad and that means that all Alt. Med. Treatments must work!” I'm sorry? “What is that light in the sky? There are plenty of things it could be like a Chinese lantern or something but it is definitely a UFO”

Our press are very good at these sorts of logical side steps. It's an easy, space filling story for them. Man see UFO, man see ghost etc. Why bother finding out the truth when this is really an inconsequential story and they didn't bother finding out the truth about anything else they had written.

Take this story in the Sun from September, “Ghost spotted in Cumbrian Pub”. A CCTV camera picked up what could, to a stupid person, be a ghost. The Sun is kind enough to have added the video footage to the website so that you can clearly see that it is a fly on the lens of the camera. An out of focus fly I grant you because the camera is focused on the room a long why behind but definitely a fly. You can see its wings move for fucks sake. Do they consult anyone who might tell them this? No, no they don’t but they do ask a “Medium” who, strangely enough thinks it's a ghost.

Or maybe take at look at this picture that the Sun published (sorry to have to make you visit the Sun’s website to see it but they have copyrighted it and I can’t find it online). Is it a ghost? No, it's Anakin Skywalker from the Phantom Menace. Photo-shopped a bit but it’s definitely him.

There is a point to this slightly bad tempered rambling.

Most news outlets have covered a completely ridiculous story this week. “Has Belfast film-maker found time travel evidence?” asks the BBC website. No, no he hasn't. Now would you mind reporting the news?

Ok, maybe a bit more depth. A man was watching the extras on his Charlie Chaplin box set) that is an exciting life) and saw some footage from the Première of 1928’s The Circus. I'll let him explain what happened next, “As I sat back to watch it I realised in the first 30 seconds there's A lady strolling by with her hand up to her ear which looked quite familiar in today's society. So I wound it back and watched it again, zoomed it in and slowed it down and got other people in to check it out. Everybody had the same reaction - it looks like she's talking on a mobile phone." Well that much is true, it does sort of look like she could be on a mobile, if it wasn't 1928, but it is so she isn't. Does he leave it there? Umm, no. "My initial reaction was that's a mobile phone, they weren't around then, my only explanation - and I'm pretty open-minded about the sci-fi element of things - it was kind of like wow that's somebody that's went back in time." Two things here, 1, learn to speak properly and 2, how is that proof of time travel? She looks like she is on the phone. It's not that she is centre shot waving her Iphone about. And then he says the classic credulous line, “A mystery like this one, bottom line I don't think we're ever going to find out” No sir you are wrong. Just because you don't have the intellectual rigour to work it out doesn't mean that others shouldn't of can’t. Hearing aid, scratching face, not wanting to be filmed, pick one!

Ok, I'm being hard on this fucktard, he is allowed to think that if he likes and he can even tell his friends about it if he wants but why all the coverage? Just put “Time Travel Charlie Chaplin Mobile Phone” into Google and see how many hits you get. How many of them offer an explanation for this nonsense? Very few. Most of them just print his remarkable leap of logic. Surely we deserve a bit better than some blokes opinion reported as news.

Sorry, I've rambled on again. I wasn't going to do this I seem to remember saying. An award now I think.

The Award For Just Trying Really Hard To Moan About Stuff That Really Doesn't Matter Of The Week or The Mountain Out Of A Molehill Award,

Have you survived clock-o-gedden? Well as you are reading this I suppose you have. If you read yesterdays Daily Express you would have thought it was the end of the world. “Britain in gloom as clocks go back” was the headline. The opening line of the article is “Britons face a day of chaos tomorrow as the clocks go back an hour”. It's a Sunday, who cares! Calm down Express “writing” person.

“A third of us will oversleep” again I say, so, it’s Sunday. They continue, “20% will wake up to a cold house after forgetting to change the central heating timer.” says the next line, that's an odd statistic. Oh hang on; what's that in the next paragraph? “Research by energy company Npower....” ahhh, it makes a bit more sense now, it's a bad and pointless PR survey piece but with an exciting Daily Express doom-leaden twist. I'll ignore the rest of it then.

If you want a bit more on Bad PR, try the Michael Marshall's blogposts for the Merseyside Skeptics.

As I mentioned it earlier, here is the whole of Tim Minchin's Storm.

Maybe no “Diana Watch” next week as we are off to Kent but we'll see. Have a great week.

The Daily Express and Foreign Aid

2010-10-26T09:19:00.000+01:00

Now, it would be fairly easy to portray those who “write” for the Daily Express as unpleasant, small minded, borderline racist, xenophobic, black-hearted tossers who think that because our economy is having a bit of a downturn at the moment it’s perfectly acceptable for our, comparatively, very rich country to withdraw from the world and slash the Foreign Aid Budget. God forbid that we should help people who are actually starving to death or dying from easily preventable diseases when we have think about delaying Trident for a little while.

It would be easy for me to do that but why should I when they are quite capable of doing it themselves. Here’s today’s front page,

Stopping people from dying is a “scandal” apparently. But surely this is just a one of aberration; it can’t be a campaign can it because that would be appalling? Well, here are 2 front pages from last week,

As I said before, I don’t have to make them look bad because they are bad and they are not ashamed by it.

Diana Watch

2010-10-24T09:42:00.000+01:00

So, some very rich mostly men destroy our economy by not fully understanding how banking works (I hope that it was that and not that they did know what they were doing because would be very upsetting indeed) and now some rich people are telling us that we are all in this together and all our public services have to be cut. I over simplify (there are quite a few millionaires in the Government, 18 in the cabinet, but there were quite a few in the last one as well) but you get my point.
George Osborne told Parliament how we (and I say “we” because it certainly isn't “them”) are going to pay down the national debt that we didn't cause. Cutting child benefit, BBC to take on the cost of the World Service, the Foreign Office will see it budget cut by 24% and cuts to the armed services were all on the list.
The navy was hit quite hard in the review and will loose its flagship, the aircraft carrier the Ark Royal. It will be decommissioned this year, 4 years earlier than planned. However, due to “interesting” contractual reasons it is though that cancelling the 2 new aircraft carriers currently being built would be more expensive than completing their build so that order will be finished. We will then be the proud owners of 2 shiny, new very big boats that we can't afford to put planes on. Many ideas have been put forward on what to do with some flat topped ships, most seem to involve NATO aircraft using them, but can I make a suggestion? England is bidding for the 2018 World Cup and I think that we need some sort of gimmick or novelty idea to draw some attention to ourselves and that's where the Aircraft carriers come in. Yes we have some great looking stadia, like that one that Arsenal play in and the Manchester City one (I know nothing of football hence my support of AFC Bournemouth), but can you imagine a game of international football played on the deck of a moored, planeless Aircraft carrier? Or, for later round games, a boat at cruising speed in the English Channel? Come on, that would be entertaining. Ok, I agree there might be one or two problems but nothing that can't be sorted out. We are a resourceful people.
Back to the cuts. Various benefits will be cut and there will be yet another crackdown on benefit cheats. Whilst this plays well in the right-wing press, who think that no one should get benefits except them, it rarely saves that much money. Well, about £1 billion per year, ok, I accept that this is a quite a large amount of money but compare it to the amount that is paid out by the HMRC error. That is £4.2 billion.

And how does the government intend to help the HMRC sort out this problem and make it more efficient? Why, by cutting it's budget by 15% of course. Brilliant. Oh and this is the department that supposed to enforcing our tax laws and making sure that our biggest companies pay their tax bills, yes Vodafone I am looking at you.
Over all it was a spending plan the Margaret Thatcher would love.
A report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies said that the spending cuts would affect the poor the most. They described it as “more regressive than progressive” but massive disappointment Nick Clegg claimed that the IFS report was “distorted nonsense.” He may have a bit of point but when it suits him, ie before the election, the IFS was a respected Think Tank that said that the LibDems economic plans were the most credible, well that's what he claimed in a speech to the RCN on Tuesday the 27th of April 2010. It's easy to accept peoples opinions when they agree with yours isn't it Nick.

One of the other things that was cut was the Severn Estuary Tidal barrier. It was going to cost £34 billion and provide about 5% of the UK's electricity or enough for all of Wales.
There were good arguments for and against the building of the barrier, it's a low carbon technology that would have been reasonable effective at generation Vs the cost (it is quite high but it would have powered an entire country) and some possible damage to bird life. Of course the reason it was dropped was the price and only the price. More specifically the fact that it was a Government backed scheme.
We will build some nice new big, expensive nuclear power plants instead because Government don't have to play for them directly. Not because they are safe or efficient but because the initial cost will be met by someone else. Well except for the £5 billion subsidy to fast-track the building of the reactors that was agreed by the last Government but will be paid for by a slight increase in ours bill. Oh and the cost of decommissioning the plants. On this point the estimate for the current stations is around £70 billion to be met by the tax payer. With the new plants there is supposed to be a scheme where by the companies running them has to put some money aside each year to pay for it but given the difficult to know nature of the problem and the unpredictability of long term costings, any short fall will be picked up by the tax payer. Oh and then there is Deep Geological Storage, an untested technology, which is estimated to cost £10 billion. It is not cheap.
The problem with comparing the various costs of different types of generating is that it is really hard to do. It is hard to get the information and, unless you are an expert in such things, when you have the information it is really hard to understand. Here for instance is a Nuclear Power Generation Cost Benefit Analysis. WTF? And so it is almost impossible for me (I don't know about you) to have an informed opinion. Which is best? I don't know.
David Cameron is slightly obsessed with his Big Society where he can see the chance to save money (getting people to do things for free that used to be jobs that people were paid for) but where it is actually a good idea he says not word. Why do we need massive central power generation? Oh of course, profit. Can't interfere with the making of profit of power companies can we.
I've said it before and I will say it again. Micro, not macro, generation is the way forward. A few changes to the planning regulations would save us thousands of tonnes of CO2 a year and a power station or 2. Simple things such as all new domestic properties to be triple glazed and to have solar panels on the roofs. We currently pay quite well for feed-in tariffs. All those pointless and wasted rooftops. How about all of that space on top of factories or super markets? Some solar panels and a few wind turbines and they are generating most of their power. It can be done and it can be done easily but there is inertia within Government. If we are all generating a bit then power stations will have to generate less. It's quite simple.
Shall I tell you of my invention? Well it's an idea for an invention really. All that water flows off of your roof and into your guttering and then into the down pipe. What if there was a series of tiny generators in the down pipe? Well it's how hydro-electric plants work, only smaller, but if everyone was doing it. Loads of power. Alright it is a bit crappy but it might work.

I have rambled on a bit as usual, sorry. And so to some awards,

The Award for Story Clearly Made Up By Script Writers of the Week,

The UK's newest and most sophisticated submarine was carrying out a crew transfer with a surface vessel in the Kyle of Localsh when it ran aground. It has the finest sonar and stealth equipment and is called the Astute. The name alone is funny enough but there is another level of humour. The tug that was used to pull the World's most advance submarine free is to be decommissioned under the spending cuts announced this week. Is this not a story line from Yes Minister?

The Award for Doing Well in a Minority Sport That Doesn’t Get That Much Coverage of the Week,

As there is still a persistent rumour that we are not very good at sport I feel that I need to carry on pointing out when we have done well. In that vein, well done to Beth Tweddle, Louis Smith and Dan Purvis who have all won medals at the World Gymnastic Championships.

That is enough I think for one Sunday. Have a lovely rest of week. Oooh, and don’t forget the podcast as well.

A Lucky Find

2010-10-17T08:26:00.000+01:00

I was browsing a local second hand bookshop the other day trying to find a title that wasn't authored by Dan Brown, a harder task than you might imagine (it seems several million people can be wrong but they realize this by the end of chapter 3 rather than when they are standing in the queue waiting to pay. If you are not sure about the quality of the novel that you are about to purchase you can carry out this simple test. Hold the book somewhere you can see it. Look carefully at the front cover, the spine and then the back cover If the words Dan Brown appear at any point (whether that be as the author or in a quote from a review i.e. “if you loved Dam Brown then you'll love this..” or “..the new Dan Brown,,”) gently place the book back where you found it, go home, sit quietly for a moment and think about how close you came to intellectual death. Maybe you could tell your friends who, seeing how close they came to loosing you, will buy you a drink.)
I was looking through some of the older works in the shop when I spied a battered old tome. The leather binding was fraying and the gold embossed title down the back was difficult to make out. Was it? No, it can't be, can it? I removed it from the shelf and tried to wipe some of the dirt off. A musty smell arouse from it as I opened it to the title page. A deep joy filled me to my very core! It was! It really was!
I held the hallowed book in my hands. They trembled slightly like a frightened vole or a nervous virgin bride on her wedding night might. It was a very rare 1839 copy of “Keeping the Poor in their Place” by Valentine Slaymaker. The volume was subtitled “exploiting those who deserve it or how to keep the mud of your boots by walking on the backs of prostrate oiks.”
Well this excited me greatly, as I am sure you can imagine. In that rare group of people who sit happily in the intersection of the Venn diagram that shows Economists and Bibliolaters, as I do, this was a book that was talked about in hushed, reverential tones. It's revolutionary theories and it's total disregard for human dignity in the face of profit making is legendary. Yet here it was with my slightly sweaty fingers fondling it's content.
As I leafed through the pages of this almost mythical edition dust coated my fingers. Everything pointed to this book being a first edition. I was suddenly having a very good day.
The chapter headings alone indicated the polemic direction of this publication, titles such as “The Poor as a Source of Fuel” and “War is Good for Keeping Their Numbers Under Control and for Profit” didn't really hide the political leanings of the author.
As I read on further something started to dawn on me. I was beginning to recognize some of the ideas. I had heard them before and quite recently as well but I couldn't put my finger on it. So I read on.
The chapter on education, for instance, rang a bell somewhere in my over stimulated brain. Mr Slaymaker's argument was that only a very basic level of literacy was necessary for the poor as their minds could actually be damaged by trying to learn too much. They also had no concept of accruing money so there was no need for them to fully understand finance. (He also has a sub-section on how to entertain the poor and the best way to do this. They could be sated with regular minstrel shows it seems. The better minstrels, he advised, would say that they were singing for their mothers who had recently died of plague, whether or not it was true it was not important, it would get the crowd on their side.)
Higher education should be reserved for those who could afford to pay for it as well. He argues that there only social mobility the country needs is the aristocracy moving from Town to the Country when the weather gets warmer.
Another chapter about “The Natural Sciences” makes the case for private investment, and only private investment, in carrying out experiments. To quote the great man “Why should the working man's hard earned taxes (of which only the poor should pay as large companies should be allowed to keep all of their monies as they invest it, thus creating jobs in sustainable sectors such as tulip bulb speculation) be wasted on finding things out when we already know all of the things that we need to know. God is responsible for all that we don't know and can't understand. The inquiring mind is an ungodly mind.”
He continues by saying that he has nothing against Gentleman Scientists because they have their own money to waste but their work is of no relevance. He gives a for instance, “I have heard of one so-called scientist who is getting his son to play an oboe near a snooker table upon which he has placed any number of earth worms. I ask of you, what can this possible tell us other then whether worms like Vivaldi or not?”
I'm sure you can appreciate how this sort of rhetoric was sounding eerily familiar but still from whence I had heard I could not tell. I continued to flick through the book.
I was checking for damage or defacement that may effect the price that I would pay when I came across some scribblings on the inside of the front and back covers. Most of the childish style script was unreadable and in some sort of crayon but from what I could make out it was a declaration of ownership. It seems that the book had once belonged too, and was well thumbed by, someone called Gideon Osborne.
Who was this mysterious man with the very posh name? We shall never know. Just another one of life little mysteries like rail ticket pricing or where the LibDems backbone has gone? Where is he now I wondered?
I am now, of course, the proud owner of this historical oddity and I regularly read though it having a little chuckle at it's outmoded political sentiments.

Diana Watch

2010-10-10T08:44:00.000+01:00

2 tweets from my brother from Thursday morning.

“It's at this point of the morning I wish I'd been lazy and driven in to work rather than cycle”, followed 57 minutes later by, “In ambulance on way to hospital having been knocked off my bike. Suspected broken leg.”

He had indeed broken his leg, in several places, but the rest of him was fine. Friday afternoon for him consisted of a rather long surgical procedure to put all the broken bits of bone back into some sort of order using chisels, drills and various bits of Meccano (orthopaedic surgery is not the most delicate of affairs). And now begins, what might be but then again may not be, the long road to recovery.

I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped him. All the people that helped at the scene and to the ambulance crew. To the A and E staff, the ward staff and even the surgeons who I have been known to mock from time to time. Thank you all so much.

I know it's pointless because none of them read this but I think everyone should know that most people aren't twats and are actually quite nice and the NHS is fucking brilliant and I love it, warts and all. OK, maybe not the warts.

Did one of our papers some how manage to get a picture of Princess Diana on the front page? Of course they did but can you guess which one? Of course you can because it was the Express,

My question to you on this lovely Sunday morning (well it's lovely here) is, who would work for NICE? Really, why would you? You just can't win and you have to interviewed by the enormo-twat that is John Humphrys (He was born in a Welsh town called Splot apparently, I think we have discovered the seat of the Humphrys anger, his home town has a stupid name.)

Their latest kicking from the press came after they did what all proper scientists, skeptics and, to be honest, right thinking people should do, they changed their minds, and therefore advice, in the face of new evidence.

In 2007 the organisation decided, with the help of advanced computer modelling and complex algorhythms rather than the more powerful personal anecdote, that the evidence for the prescribing 3 drugs, Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl, for early to moderate Alzheimer’s disease was not strong enough for them to recommend them and so they didn't. This caused a bit of a fuss at the time because the drugs had been available before and they are not that expensive, the figure being bandied around is £2.80 per day. Some even went as far as to call NICE cruel, which was a little harsh. The evidence was weak so they were withdrawn from NHS prescribing, as it should be (they were still available privately though). We practice evidence based medicine, that is the way it works.

This week, following the consideration of 17 new studies (well according to NICE anyway so dispute this), it seems that the evidence base has shifted in favour of these drugs and so the decision was changed. Now that we know that they work and that they are safe and cost effective then now they can be prescribed. Personally I don't see what is wrong with that but, as I have complained about before, our press does not cope well when faced with a nuanced argument and they see changing your mind in the face of new evidence as a sign of weakness. It is reported that you were wrong rather than the situation has changed.

In British politics it seems that the worst thing that you can be accused of is a U-turn and the press, most of whom haven't shifted any of their ideologically views since some time during the reign of Queen Victoria, usually attach the word “humiliating” to the phrase U-turn just to reinforce their point. And so it was for NICE. The Telegraph had “Alzheimer's u-turn by Nice to allow drugs for mild cases” and the Mail went with “Alzheimer's victory for the Mail: Now just £2.50 can buy a life after U-turn on drugs banned by NICE”, in fact every paper I have looked at on-line (so not The Times then) called it a U-turn.

One of the interesting things is the wide range in the numbers that various papers said were effected by this decision. The Telegraph said “around 80,000”, the Guardian had “Tens of thousands”. The Mirror used the figure of “465,000” people, whilst the Mail claimed a rather vague “Hundreds of thousands”. The Star had something about boobs.

According to the Financial Times this change will cost the NHS £13 million per year so I ask the question that many have asked critics of NICE (including on the Pod Delusion podcast a few weeks ago, Episode 53 I think) what would you do? Rather than just carping on all the time put yourself in their shoes. It is a limited drugs budget and to spend £13 million on these drugs you would have to stop spending it on some other drugs, so which patients, who can all bring a miserable story and sad faced picture guaranteed to get them into the next round of the X-factor, would you tell they couldn't have their drugs? Come on journalists who do nothing but criticise others, what would you do? The likelihood is you will choose something that is close to you because a member of your family has suffered from it and excluded other things because, perhaps, you think that they are self inflicted and shouldn't be treated on the NHS. This is why something like NICE has to exist, to remove to emotion from decisions such as this and consider them in a purely rational, scientific way.

As usual I've rambled on, let do some awards,

The Award for Turning Out Not To Be An Arse (Possibly. Although it may have been for publicity but does that matter in the end, isn't the outcome the important thing whatever the motivation)

If you write a letter to your favourite film star you probably don't expect him to reply, after all Jim'll fix it hasn't been on television for years. You also probably don't expect that film star to turn up at your school either although that is exactly what happened to Bea Delap.

She wrote to Capt. Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean films asking for help with a mutiny and he, err, turned up to Meridian Primary School in Greenwich, London. Whilst he didn't help the children with their mutiny, Capt. Jack (played by Johnny Depp) did offer the children some excellent advice, always remember to brush your teeth.

The Award for Best Line of the Week,

One of the rescue teams has managed to break through into the underground chamber where the Chilean miners have been trapped for the last 66 days. A Journalist excitedly asks Chilean mining minister Golborne "how are the miners?", who replied "a lot calmer than the journalists." Nice.

That will do I think. The usual degree of rambling has been achieved and now I must stop, there are sick people to visit. Off to Devon now to visit our god daughter who's not been well either but the NHS made her better also, damn they are great and not just because they employ me.

Have a super fun week.

Diana Watch

2010-10-03T12:13:00.000+01:00

“Well, there used to be a bloke called Peg who had a wooden leg. He used to set himself on fire and then jump into the Lido to put it out”

“What would Health and Safety think of that?”

“They don’t let you do anything these days.”

It was announced at the beginning of the week that Catherine Walker had died. She was a very successful fashion designer but differed from many others in her field by shunning the limelight and not doing runway shows.

She was, however, famous for one thing that interested a certain section of our press. She provided frocks for Princess Diana.

How did they mark the passing of this talented designer, successful business woman and founder of a Cancer Charity?

Well, to be honest, most of them were pretty good about it. A short story on an inside page that played up the Diana connection. The Times had it on the front page with an accompanying photograph of Diana that at least Catherine Walker was in,

Not so the Express.

Really that is just a little bit rude. Covering the death of someone on the front page and then having a picture of someone else.

Friday the 1st of October saw the introduction of the much hated (by the Mail, Express and Church Groups, people who really know about bigotry) Equality Act.

The act aims to provide protection for workers by banning discrimination by employers and covering areas such as age, disability and pay. It brings together 9 different bits of legislation into one easy to follow act.

Ah, Britain moves, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. No one can be discriminated against in the workplace on ground of Race, religion, sexual orientation, age and a big long list of other things I haven’t thought of but nasty bigoty types have. A utopia has been reached, we are all equal. No man or woman is above any other. It is Brave New World (but without the drugging) and not 1984. Who could not be happy at such an event?

Well, entertainingly, both ends of the spectrum.

British companies don't like the Act. "Businesses are really concerned," said Abigail Morris from the British Chambers of Commerce.

"The government's own impact assessment shows that this is going to cost £190m just for businesses to understand the legislation, and this at a time when we really need them to be concentrating on creating private sector jobs and driving economic recovery."

What she seems to be saying is, “we want to carry on exploiting people, discriminating against older people and paying women less because it increases our profits. Equality=Cost and we don't want that.”

Well at least we now all know that I suppose. Business cares not for the workers. Is it any wonder that the Unions are getting twitchy?

I know that some see it as too easy to mock the Daily Mail but some times they make it too easy.

On Friday they published, on their front page, an article that complained that this was the “Death of the Office Joke”. Now, if you tell a racist, sexist, misogynist or anti-religious joke, you could fall foul of this legislation.

What's wrong with that? I don't know about the place where you work but we don't tell that sort of joke, it's not very nice.

They also have a problem with what is called Third Party harassment. According to the paper “It creates the controversial legal concept of ‘third party harassment’, under which workers will be able to sue over jokes and banter they find offensive – even if the comments are aimed at someone else and they weren’t there at the time the comments were made.” Yep, nothing wrong with that either.

There is some argument however for a freedom of speech infringement here; do you have the right to offend? Is this legislation attacking your right to be a twat and it is possible that the answer to that question is yes. It is a defence that the paper often uses to defend it's self and did when Jan Moir wrote her awful article about the death of Stephen Gately, but for some reason they decided not to go with that, curious.

Maybe it is because the nasty Moir woman attacked “Modern” comedy earlier in the week. “This cruel, witless modern comedy is beyond a joke” she said. Her argument seems to be that we are no longer picking on the correct groups of people such as Gays, blacks and non-Christian religions.

So in Mail-land you should have the freedom of speech to attack anyone you like no matter how offensive you are, unless the Mail thinks you shouldn't. It's no wonder their readers are so filled with impotent rage, they have no idea what they can and can't do because their paper keeps confusing them.

But how about those that campaign for equality, what do they think of the act? As it is supposed to be anti-discriminatory surely they are as happy as a pig in the sort of thing that pigs are supposed to be happy in. What do, for instance, the British Humanist Association think about it? Well they are not happy either. They say that it gives “excessive privileges to religious organisations”. Oh dear, just when we thought we were getting somewhere.

I thought, given the coverage in the right wing press, that everyone had to be treated equally in the workplace but it seems not. According to Naomi Phillips, BHA Head of Public Affairs, ‘Through wide exceptions that exempt religious organisations from significant parts of the law, the Equality Act gives excessive privileges specifically to religious groups, permitting them to discriminate against not only gay and lesbian people but against the non-religious and those of other religions.” Bugger. Oh well, it seems that we still have to carry on campaigning for equal rights for EVERYONE. Everyone, religious people, atheists, woman, gays, whoever, treated the same. No one group will be better than another. Please can we make that happen?

I've rambled on again haven't I? Sorry. Let's do some awards then,

The Award for Helping to Make Scientology Look Even Sillier of the Week,

Usually this award would go straight to Tom Cruise he seems to be on a mission (and not an impossible one, sorry, that was awful) to bring Scientology down from the inside by making himself and therefore, by association, his “religion” look ridiculous. This week, however, he has had some help.

Firstly there was a Panorama programme on BBC1 that had a bit a, admittedly flawed, look at what some may describe as the cult.

Then Councillor John Dixon, who was suspended from his job after the “Church” complained about him tweeting “I didn't know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off”, was cleared of any wrong doing and that he had not breached the councillors' code of conduct.

The final blow in a bad week came when the Charity Commission announced that it would recognise Druidism as a religion for Tax purposes. This is funny because they have refused to grant the same status to Scientology thereby making sure that it is not considered religion in this Country, well done us.

Ha, where is your Xenu now hey? Trapped in a volcano or something I think, to be honest I can't be bothered to wonder waist high through the levels of bullshit necessary to find out.

The Award for Bad Planning at a Sporting Event of the Week,

Maybe this should go to the organisers of the Commonwealth Games who have had one or two problems in getting ready for the event that starts today in Delhi but that would be too easy and I think that some people have been a little mean to them in recent weeks. No, no, the winner must be the person who thought that it would be a good idea to hold the Ryder Cup in Wales. In October.

What did they think would happen? Wales is not exactly renowned for its tropical weather and October isn't one of the UK's sunniest months. Surprisingly enough it rained on Friday and play was abandoned. Oh and then it rained yesterday afternoon and play was abandoned. And it’s rained again this morning and play is yet to start (at the time of writing)

I also heard, through the medium of Twitter so I don't know how accurate the story is, that the US team didn't bring any wet weather gear with them and had to buy some when they got here. Great research there. Planned about as well as the invasion of Iraq. It seems that the motto of America is “I'm sure it will be fine”. This is what happens if you watch too many Hollywood movies.

OK, enough moaning from me, I'm sure you have things to do. Have a lovely week and do try the Dorchester Online Radio Company podcast you might enjoy it, although you may not, it's the risk we take. Have a lovely week.

Diana Watch

2010-09-26T09:41:00.002+01:00

Just when you think you are going to have a quiet week where nothing much happens, how else can you explain the current media obsession with the athlete’s accommodation in India for the Commonwealth Games, then up steps a World leader and World leading loon.

Thursday saw the opening of the new session of the UN in New York and this is a good time, if you are a loony World leader who is still allowed in the UN building, to make a bit of a name for yourself.

Many fondly remember Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, friend of Cuba, hater of America, lover of Power, Oliver Stone documentaries and really long Presidential broadcasts, taking to the podium sometime after President George W Bush and declaring that he could still smell the sulphur.

So the parking was terrible, as usual (it’s quite a popular event), and the Central hall at the UN was a buzz. Who would be the star turn? Would Chavez do his old “US devil” material? Would Raul Castro be as funny as his brother whose Donald Duck impression is legendary? Has Mugabe moved beyond, slightly dodgy, close up magic ending with his rousing version of “My Way”?

There was palpable excitement as former Miss Tehran, semi-finalist on “Fundamentalists Got Talent (for denying the Holocaust)” and, now, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strode purposely to the lectern.

Mahmoud, 36, 24, 36, is best known in diplomatic circles for his after dinner speaking with which he makes enough money to fund on orphanage for injured sheep in down town Jerusalem, which he swears blind doesn’t exist. His usual subject is great cricket anecdotes 1975 to 2005 so many were keen to hear his take on the recent brouhaha between England and Pakistan, which, if you are interested, started after a disputed prawn cocktail at the 2 teams' pre-series curry and fish and chips night. Why people can’t just split the bill 50/50 is beyond me. That’s how the Boer War started you know, well that and an argument over tipping. William Gladstone said 10% and Paul Kruger said 15; the rest is made up history.

Anyway, the President began strongly. A string of fantastic one liners about Iran being ready for dialogue based on “respect and justice” and that the “UN was loosing credibility with its continued sanctions against his country.”

However the real fireworks of the act came when the beats kicked in. His recent conversion to the joys of hip hop was one of his states better kept secrets but it soon became clear, as his DJ dropped some phat grooves, that he has skills.

As the bass boomed out the US, British and several EU delegations show that they were no fans of Public Enemy. He worked through a selection of their hits but it was his reworking of “911 is a joke” that really blow the roof of the joint.

As people walked out his rhyming became really creative, “inside job” and “Mohammed is God”, and “Secret plot to support Israel” with “your plans for getting us to give up our nuclear aspirations will fail.”

As the rhythms faded and the dry ice cleared Ahmadinejad collapsed to his knees as an assistant came out and placed a cape across his shoulders. He then leapt back on to his feet and stood with his fist in the air. The band struck up, a surprising tight horn section now you ask, and he left the stage with a glint in his eye and the look of a man who had made his point.

Most of the audience, that stayed, agreed that he was hell of a showman but many said that the reasonable points he made, such as comparing the nearly 3000 people that died in the attack on the twin towers with the hundreds of thousands who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, were some what lost in the paranoid rhymes.

Diana Watch

2010-09-19T10:49:00.000+01:00

Basically we should just write this week off. We were never going to win. Most of the papers care not for the crimes carried out by or covered up by the Catholic Church and neither do the television news programs. They have God on their side so that is such a massive positive that all other things are swept away. That is the right God by the way, not one of those funny foreign Gods.
Try this thought experiment; a Muslim leader wants to come to Britain for a bit a stroll around. He has been accused and has been shown to be, with documented evidence, to have known about and actively helped to cover up sexual crimes committed against children. Do you think that he would have got a visa? How much fuss would the Murdoch press and his TV news channel have made about that? You just have to look at the Fox news coverage of the not-a-mosque-that-isn’t-at-Ground-Zero story for a bit of a hint.
Do you think that the Mail and the Express would run glowing editorials about what we can learn from him and what an all round good egg he is? Do you think he would be allowed to compare a significant number of people in this country to Nazis because they think that his unpleasant views on homosexuality, abortion, woman, other religions, contraception, reporting crimes to the Police and how important people who believe in the same sky fairy (but only if they worship it in the correct way) are and should be listened to more than others, are wrong and harmful?
To be honest we are winning anyway, there are only about 5 million Catholics in the UK, which leaves about 60 million of us that aren’t. In a fight I think we will have them.
Their numbers are also declining (as are the circulations of the papers that support them credulously but so are ours) so if we wait around a while and let them continue to shoot themselves in, what seems like an extraordinary number of, feet then they will, hopefully, dwindle away to nothing and we can go about our lives, living them in an inclusive friendly way without these nasty little bigots having a say.

Again stolen from the BBC website.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not anti any religion, you/they have as much right to worship who or what you want as I do to not do it, but the double standards, hypocrisy and outright lies of the Pope, the Vatican and most of the British Press is becoming a little wearing.
Modern Religions have not given us our morals, these existed before these religions, the oldest of which is about 2000 years, and they merely wrapped their philosophies around them. The general principles of being nice to each and not killing others make basic evolutionary sense to preserve the group.
Whilst we are at it, lets have a look at those 10 Commandments shall we?

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's.'

The first 3 aren't even about morals, just God. No mention of marriage being about between a man and a woman, nothing about dodgy employment decisions against woman.
The continuing argument from the Churches, especially the Catholic one, is that Atheists have no morals and are bad people and, as I would imagine that most people who read this ARE Atheists, we know that this is just blatantly untrue.
During his sermon at Westminster Abbey, following being on the front of every paper all week, he said to an audience made up of the Prime Minister and various Ex-Prime Ministers, various leading politicians and other important types, that the Church was being side-lined. That after having private meetings with all 3 party leaders.

Sorry about the ranty style today, when the week started I really wasn't that fussed about Popey coming here. OK, I didn't think we should cough up the money for it but I wasn't to upset about it. Now however, you have no idea how filled with righteous anger I am now.

Let's do some awards to help dissipate my rage,

The Award for Making Sure Your Child Hates You and Will Definitely Get Bullied,

Congratulations to Jamie and Jools Oliver on the birth of their healthy new son.
Just one little thing, and I know that it is a little lazy to have a cheeky shot at celebrity baby name, but Buddy Bear? Really? That is what you want to call him? Sure?

The Award for Most Deserved Coming 14th in a Survey of 117 Towns of the Week,

The high street of Dorchester has been dubbed a “clone” after we came 14th in a survey of the country’s blandest high streets.
Obviously this has offended local shop keepers but the survey is quite right. Whilst there are a few independent shops, if you came here you wouldn't be enthralled by the dazzling range of artisan stores, unless you really like mobile phones.

I think that will do for today. Significant Other has written a review of our weekend at the End of the Road festival here. My podcast is here.
Have a lovely week, the Pope goes home today, I think, which will make it nicer for everyone.

Diana Watch

2010-09-05T20:35:00.000+01:00

Yesterday at the Dorset County Show my nephew asked “what are those?” pointing at a bull that was walking away from us.

What am I supposed to say? He is 8 and inquisitive and clearly doesn’t know, so there is only one thing to do, go for it.

“They are testicles.”

“What are testicles?” Ah, crap, I thought he’d just be happy with that, “Ummm, they are its sex organs.” The predictable response was indeed forthcoming, “What are sex organs?” In for a penny, in for a pound, “Well it’s where it makes sperm that it puts inside the mother cow to make baby cows.”

“Oh fair enough” he said. Well that was easier than I thought. So if my brother and sister-in-law get some interesting questions in the next few days I would like to say in my defence that I was answering an honest question honestly. And they were massive bollocks that I was hoping very hard that he wouldn’t notice.

I have to admit to being massively angry this week. The press are still giving almost blanket coverage of the Pakistani cricket betting thing whilst most of the papers are trying very hard to ignore proper news such a very fulsome investigation by the New York Times (NYT) into the most guttery of Britain’s gutter press, the News of the World.

This terrible waste of a tree was caught hacking into the mobile phones of various famous and influential people, most significantly at the time Princes William and Harry, and a private investigator, Glen Mulcaire, and the paper’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, were found guilty of these crimes and imprisoned.

The Editor at the time was Andy Coulson, he resigned saying that he knew nothing of these events, a stance that he continues with in his new job as David Cameron’s press chief.

However the NYT begs to differ. They say that he did know what was going on and this was confirmed by an ex-NOTW journalist, Sean Hoare, on Radio4’s PM program who said that Mr Coulson sat in on several meetings were the illegal hacking into the mobile phone voice mails of Politicians, Royals and celebrities in general. 2 men with competing versions of events, that tell very different stories, 1 of these men is lying. Personally I have a view on which one it is most likely to be, even though that does mean having to trust a NOTW journalist which is quite a hard thing to do, but I repeat the words of many people, if Mr Coulson feels that Mr Hoare is lying then he can sue him for libel. So far, nothing.

Questions have also been raised about the Metropolitan Polices handling of the investigation. They only investigated the Royal phone interceptions properly, which resulted in 2 convictions, but seemed reluctant to get involved any more. They also seem to be less than forthcoming when asked for information.

The most outspoken not particularly well informed person is probably former Deputy Prime Minster John Prescott who has started to make quite a bit of fuss about Scotland Yards avoiding of information giving.

Mr Prescott did have his phone hacked but is not having his requests for details answered. The Observer claims that Scotland Yard holds two invoices that contain the Mr Prescott’s name. They appear to show that News International, owner of the News of the World, paid Glenn Mulcaire for his help on stories relating to the deputy PM.

As a result of the Met Police’s general unhelpfulness and these new allegations Mr Prescott is calling for a judicial review into the Police handling of this case.

As the NYT says “Scotland Yard had chosen to notify only a fraction of the hundreds of people whose messages may have been illegally accessed — effectively shielding News of the World from a barrage of civil lawsuits.”

A House of Commons committee did look into the case shortly after the initial allegations were made and described the News of the World executives of “deliberate obfuscation.”

There is a code of silence that exists within most of the British press when it comes to criticism of other newspapers so it is very hard to find this story being covered in anywhere but the Guardian, although the Independent is now running it.

The BBC were very slow to pick up on it and were it has been covered in newspapers it is being done so in a way that suggests that this is party political muck raking because those who are making a fuss at the moment are left wingers such as Labour MPs and the Guardian.

Others are saying that this is just anti-Murdoch hatred from rival news organisations. Education Secretary Michael Gove was right on message this morning on Andrew Marr’s program when he said both of those things. Those making the most fuss are Labour people and the NYT is only publishing this story because it is part of a circulation war/anti-Murdoch.

The thing is, we know that more people than the 2 Princes, no singing now, have been hacked because there have been some private prosecutions against the News of the World but part of their settlements was that they most hold their silence, see also here, and that leads to the question, if it was only the Royal correspondent of the paper doing all of this hacking why did he target Graham Taylor, Alex Ferguson or Max Clifford, they are not very Royal.

I’m sure if 3 no balls in a cricket match are serious enough for the Police to investigate, surely this must be.

To cheer us all up how about some deeply poor taste advertising from China,

Diana, the lingerie range.

The other thing that really upset me this week was the resignation of Christopher Myers.

Mr Myers was, up until this week, a special advisor to Foreign Secretary William Hague but was forced to resign after an internet based whispering campaign about his and Mr Hague’s sexuality.

The awful blogger Guido Fawkes found out that the two men shared a twin room in a hotel whilst out campaigning and decided, like any bigoted idiot would, that they were definitely gay. He talked around the subject and made excuses along the lines of asking about tax payers’ money but his basic thrust was, the Hagues have no children and William spent at least one night in the same room as another man so he is defiantly gay. Tosser!

If you are wondering how much of a tosser he is, there is a section on his website called Totty Watch, massive tosser (possibly literally.)

So upsetting did the Hagues find this rumour mongering that they felt the need to release a statement much not only denied any Gayety but also told the world why they have had no children.

So might say that this was a little naïve and a bit too much information, and I would agree, but it does go to show how upset they were just because it amused some bloke called Paul. Oh and it cost a man his job!

Ok, some awards now,

The Award for Over Looked British Sporting Success of the Week,

This goes to England’s Woman’s Rugby team who are playing in the World Cup finals today against New Zealand.

The game is being played as I type this so I don’t know what the score is but never the less, COME ON ENGLAND!

The Award for Just About The Best Tennis Shot You Will See By Just About The Best Player Ever of the Week,

Ladies and Gentlemen, Roger Federer,

Ooh, before I go I bring you news of more local news think outside the box. Southampton football club have banned anyone but their own photographers from selling pictures of their home games. Local papers are not willing to pay for them so they have been coming up with novel ways of illustrating their coverage of the games. So far we have had one paper using Court Style artist’s impressions and the Bournemouth Echo used pictures from the 80’s when AFC Bournemouth played the Saints. My new favourite however goes to The Swindon Advertiser which has used little subbuteo men to show what had happened.

Here are some pictures from yesterday’s Dorchester Show and thank you to everyone on Twitter who helped me recover them after I accidentally deleted them, it was much appreciated.

No Diana Watch next week as we will be at The End of the Road Festival. Have a lovely couple of weeks.

Diana Watch

2010-08-29T14:54:00.000+01:00

“So when is Margaret's funeral, I will definitely come?”

“It's on the 14^th,”

“Oh that's my birthday,”

“I'm sorry about that,”

“Oh no, it's nice to have something to do on your birthday.”

Oh thank the lord, all will be well, Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams are friends again and the original Take That (the campest sounding band name ever, except for Gay Bikers on Acid, maybe) are back together again!

It seems that Labour really did have a bit of an idea of what they were doing with the economy after all.

Revised figures from the Office for National Statistics released on Friday show that the UK economy grew by 1.2% in the second quarter of this year. Now I believe the second quarter is April, May and June. So Gordon Brown in charge April and some of May and then the coalition took over but only tinkered.

What is encouraging is the fact that most of the growth came from the construction sector, which grew 8.5%. Building is usually one the first sectors to suffer in a recession but one of the first to recover.

As you can see from the graph this is the 3 quarter of growth in a row and this growth includes an 11% drop in air travel mostly down to ash cloud based delays.

(I may have stolen this from the BBC website)

So when the Tories and the LibDems took over all was coming along nicely, let’s hope that they don’t mess it up to much with this recent wave of privatisations.

The Government is pretending that the cuts in spending are for “Austerity” reasons but I don’t think anyone is really buying that any more. This has become ideological.

Many of their ideas won't save any money but they have handed control over to private companies.

For instance, the scrapping of NHS Primary Care Trusts and the handing of commissioning services directly to GP's.

Well that's not privatisation, GP's are the NHS you might say. Well that is sort of true. GP's surgeries are commissioned by the PCT's to work for the NHS but they are privately run companies who make profits for the shareholders in that company, usually the Partners in the practise.

There is also an interesting new development is the Partnership Collective, basically a company that is run by GP's that manages lots of Surgeries. Usually they start in one small geographical area but they soon start bidding for services nation wide. They do the managing, centrally, and local Doctors and Nurse do the work. Much like a big company because they are a big company.

I work, on Friday afternoon, for one such company called The Practise. I think that their choice of company name does sound like a Dr Who baddies organisation (the computer system is called System One, even more sinister if you ask me) but an OK employer. Again, private company making money for the owners of that private company.

Very shortly after the Governments announcement of the PCT scrapage scheme, The Practise organised a meeting with other local GP surgeries and offered to do their commissioning for them, for a little bit of cash obviously.

So which ever way you look at it the money for buying services from the NHS will go to private companies, which is privatisation isn't it?

The Government's attitude was also laid out in an interview on Radio 4's PM program when they were discussing the scrapping of the Audit Commission.

The Government spokesman brought up many anecdotes about waste with the Quango such as hiring conference space, in which they held a conference by the way, and the excessive use of pot plants (I have no idea what the excessive use of pot plants is but the BBC sent a reporter to this spokespersons office and it was filled with pot plants). He also bought up a contract that the Audit Commission had with a bagel shop. When they had a meeting that clashed with lunch they got some bagels in, OMG the waste! I'm pretty sure that that is a nice thing to do and quite usual but I digress. These were all examples of waste within an organisation that was described by Eric Pickles, Communities Secretary, as bloated. Really, a man with as many chins as him really should choose his hyperbole a little more carefully, again digression, sorry.

When it was pointed out by Eddie Mare that “isn't that the sort thing that the companies the Government will use to carry out the duties of the Audit Commission will do and do do”, the reply was well “yes that is true but I don't care what they do with the money that we give them, they are a private company” Ok, I might be paraphrasing but that was the jist.

So nothing will actually change except to introduce profit as a motive.

So on to the awards,

The Award for Being A Massively Twatty Company of the Week,

So you will have heard about the 33 Chilean miners who are trapped underground. It seems that they are going stuck there for quite a while as, in order to rescue them, a whole new mine shaft has to be drilled. They may be not be rescued until Christmas. Trapped in the dark at 36 degrees C, everything they need has to be slide down a tiny tube.

Because the mine is not working, the company that runs it is facing some financial difficulties, the Government will be paying for the rescue and THE WORKERS MAY NOT BE GETTING PAID!

The Award for Super Twat of the Week (and pretty much every week to be honest),

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Axl Rose. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has even a passing knowledge of his history with Guns N Roses but Friday night at the Reading Festival he gave one of more Divaish performances.

He and his band of hired hands came on stage on hour late, at 22:30, despite being told that they had a curfew of 23:30. Because of their late arrival, no apology to the thousands of paying fans, they were allowed to play until Midnight. They left the stage after playing “Night Train” and then the power to the stage was cut as the 23:30 curfew was part of the licensing agreement but Twaxl wanted to play on.

He returned to the stage, no power remember, and the drums began the intro to “Paradise City” which Mariah Wannabe Axl tried to sing through a megaphone. After about 5 minutes of this pantomime he left the stage.

So elements of the crowd were less then friendly to him and booed after ever song and began chants of “what a twat” (see it's not just me)

He then threatened not to play at the Leeds end of the festival tonight (Sunday) saying “ Unfortunately due to tonight we will not be at Leeds...” no mention that it was his own fault that Friday night's show was a bit rubbish.

I think that will do for today, a bit negative, sorry. I hope you all have a great week.

Diana Watch

2010-08-22T11:39:00.000+01:00

This weekend is Dorchester’s Warm Festival. It mostly consists of bands playing on the Bandstand in the Borough Gardens and us watching them with ale, although I haven’t gone yet as it is pissing it down here.

What I like out this, apart from the ale, is the unassuming, not-expecting-much name of the event. The Warm Festival. We can’t promise you heat or sunshine but it will probably be warm. Ish.

Umm, not much has happened this week to be honest; A-levels came out and were instantly belittled throughout the media.

Many have pointed out that the visual media, whether that be print or television, seem to think that only nubile young ladies have taken A-levels or at least that is the impression that they give with the photographs that they choose to illustrate their stories with. Here is a link to the Sexy A-levels photo stream.

It was the last episode of this series of That Mitchell and Webb Look on Tuesday and, after they had covered the Moon Landing conspiracy theories pretty comprehensively, tuned their attention to Diana Death conspiracy ideas with amusing results,

The Award for Over-reaction of the Week

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water a massive crocodile turns up in the English Channel. Swimming in the sea in and around Boulogne-sur-Mer,

France

, was suspended on Friday when people claimed that they had seen a massive beast paddling around.

People ran screaming from the water, ok I might be making that bit up, whilst an investigation was carried out. Where was this enormous prehistoric beast? Did it even exist? Well no, it turns out it was a log.

The Award for Pot Calling The Kettle Black of the Week,

Facebook (and other sites) this week has faced criticism this week over the amount of information it collects about its users and the amount of private data that users upload.

Eric Schmidt said that privacy is dying and that when users grow up they may consider changing their names in order to get away from the trail of embarrassing information that their younger selves posted on-line.

That Eric Schmitt by the way is the same Eric Schmitt who is the head of Google. You know Google, that search engine that has spread it wings and now offers all sorts of services for free. How are they for free you may ask? Well, they sell advertising space on their sites but they also sell all the information that they gather on you when you are using the services that they so kindly provide for you. Which is nice.

That is it for today, have a lovely week and if you enjoy the podcast do feel free to leave a review on Itunes or podbean and tell you friends about it, thank you.

Vintage Diana Watch

2010-08-15T10:32:00.000+01:00

I feel sorry for teenage boys, I really do. They are so unsure of themselves and emotionally tight. I remember it being an awful time of my life even though nothing particularly bad or interesting happened. Can I enjoy this or is it rubbish? How do you dance? Will I look rubbish if I do? If I stand here and look moody will she fancy me? How do I move my arms anyway, they seem to be welded to my pockets?

I only bring this up because yesterday we were at Vintage at Goodwood. We were having a fabulous time anyway but when we noticed that Martha and the Vandellas were on the main stage soon we thought we would pop over and see them.

Now, I love 60’s girl bands and, despite the fact that they were by no means the best of them, this was going to be a bit of a treat, hopefully. I was a little worried that they might be a bit rubbish, had I built them up too much, were they past it? (The following sentence contains a swear word or 2). Ooooohhhh fuck no, they were fan-fucking-tastic.

Martha Reeves may not the best voice in the world but she was warm and funny (and maybe even a bit sexy), the band were tight and her sisters were in great voice. Being a stereotype of a 35 year old white bloke, it takes a little bit of effort to get me dance in daylight, surrounded by other people, when no alcohol has been taken but they managed it and how! A field filled with people of all ages, colours and sexes grooving away to Heatwave and Jimmy Mack. If the field had had a roof on it it would have been blown off when the horn section played the opening few bars of Dancing in the Street. Oh man, it was fun and has entered my top 5 gigs ever.

This brings me back to teenage boys, can they have a good time or are their hormones completely against them. As everyone was having, just about, their best time ever, there were spots of stillness within the crowd and every single one of them was male and between the ages of 13 and 19. Damn they looked miserable. “I want to enjoy myself but I just don’t know how.” I felt sorry for them after a while, being excluded, as they were, from the group experience by the cruel hormonal trick that their bodies play on them simply so they can have some armpit hair.

For those of you not familiar with the mighty Martha and her Vandellas I give you,

We had a fantastic day out at Vintage at Goodwood and I am in such a good mood that they will be no news review (although the Tories are no longer making cuts for “Austerity” reasons they are ideological. Look how many things they want to privatise) and no awards either except maybe an award for giving us a bloody brilliant time and that would go to Wayne Hemmingway and his lovely festival, oh and Martha Reeves obviously.

I can bring you vintage Diana Watch though,

This was noticed on the wall of one of the stalls yesterday by Significant Other who I’m sure will also post something about our day out on here at some point.

Want to see some pictures of our day out? Of course you do,

Have a great week all.

Diana Watch

2010-08-08T09:28:00.002+01:00

You try and give something up and it pulls you back in. It's a bit like Scientology in that respect.

I was going to stop doing this “every sunday” thing, for a while at least, because the podcast is staring to take off and it takes quite a bit of time to do both. That and I don't want to repeat myself.

After last weeks posting no one commented at all on me stopping so I thought “The readers, or lack of them, have spoken, no one cares that much so I will stop for a while at least”, and then the Daily Express decided that I just couldn't. You want to stop do you? You think you can ignore something like this do you? Just once more, it can't hurt can it?

Lady and Gentleman I give you,

Don't stare directly at it, the stupid will burn your eyes.

Shall we do some awards whilst we are here? I think we shall,

The Award for Massive Twat (Sorry Again) of the Week,

Naomi Campbell appeared, rather surprisingly, at the War Crimes trial of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. She was giving evidence about blood diamonds that she was allegedly given by Mr Taylor.

She was asked about how she felt about appearing before the tribunal and she said it was an “inconvenience”. Really? Oh I'm very sorry Ms Campbell, did you have something more important than a war crimes trail to do? Maybe you had to abuse your PA or work on your throwing arm? Perhaps you had to walk up and down a bit in a slightly silly frock?

If you thought that the Supermodel was a vacuous idiot before she really hasn't helped herself but, as my mother said this week, “She looked fantastic”.

Here you can see a picture of the people who attended the dinner where the barely sentient ball of rage met Charles Taylor, note the caption for the woman 4^th for the right, crushing.

The Award for Interesting Yet Pointless Size Comparison Because No One Knows the Size of the Original of the Week,

An enormous glacier has broken of from the North West coast of Greenland and if it moves South could easily interfere with shipping. It is the largest Arctic iceberg since 1962 but how big is it? Well, it is 260 sq km or 100 sq miles. That tells me nothing, can you please compare it to something, maybe an island that I have no idea how big it is really. Why thank you BBC radio news who said it was 2/3rds the size of the Isle of Wight.

Whilst that wasn't really a helpful comparison the one on the BBC website was much better. On there it says that the iceberg contains enough fresh water “keep all

public tap water flowing for 120 days," well according to Prof Muenchow anyway.

Whilst the breaking off of a single iceberg, no matter how big, is not proof of anything the first 6 months of this year have been the warmest on record.

The Award for Least Surprising Speech Content of the Week,

The not very healthy Ex-leader of

Cuba

, Fidel Castro, has given his first speech to Parliament in 4 years.

His audience were not as tough on him as perhaps they might have been as they applauded him just for turning up. Why doesn't that happen to me? I have entered plenty of rooms that contain other people but never have they exploded into spontaneous applause, it's just not right.

Anyway, back to some sort of point, can you guess which Country Ex-President Castro was most annoyed with? Well can you? We’re not carrying on until you have a guess. Come on it’s your own time you’re wasting. That’s better.

Those of you who said

Chile

will receive no points, the same goes for those who suggested The Federated States of Micronesia. No it was

America

, which is far enough I suppose as they are still keeping up those sanctions despite the fact you can get a package holiday to Havana. If you can go all-inclusive to a place there is quite a strong chance that your economic sanctions aren't working that well.

I'm sure that that will do for now, I'm still not sure if I'm going to carry on with this blogging thing but don't worry, I'm not going to go on about it anymore, when a decision is reached I will tell you.

Have a lovely rest of week and if you like the podcast tell and friend or give us a nice review on the website or on Itunes, thank you xx

Diana Watch

2010-08-01T10:01:00.002+01:00

I’m not sure what to do. I have now started doing a podcast which sort of covers the things that I do here and I don’t really want there to be any duplication. So should I stop doing this every Sunday, that is the question? Or should I carry on and possibly bore those who listen to the podcast as well (that is assuming that they weren’t bored already). Oh I don’t know, if you all listened to the podcast instead of reading this (maybe some of you do both) then I could stop doing this.

In the mean time, here are some awards.

The Award for (I’m sorry but there is no other way of putting this) Massive Twat of the Week,

Some time earlier in his smartly dressed life AA Gill managed to piss off a surprisingly large number of people after he, to misquote Johnny Cash, shot a baboon in Tanzania just to watch it die.

Now however he has been rude about someone who is not going to take it. In an article about Clare Balding’s new TV show Britain by Bike, which is on BBC4 if you are interested, he called her “the Dyke on the bike”. What, pray tell, Adrian does her sexuality have to do with a TV program about cycling? The article had several more disparaging references to Ms Balding’s sexuality. She has made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

This is not the first time the Adrian Gill has decided to bring up the sexuality of female Television presenters whilst reviewing a program of theirs; he has done it to Sue Perkins as well. He really is a rather unpleasant man.

Before making her complaint to the PCC Clare Balding had written to the editor of the Sunday Times who reacted in a rather unhelpful way, he replied to her approach by saying “In my view some members of the Gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society.” Umm, which accepting society is that? Is that the society that thinks that it is ok to print reviews of television programs which include unpleasant remakes about the presenters sexuality because they are not heterosexual. I note that the sexuality of hetti presenters is never mentioned. If it isn't a problem for Mr Gill then he wouldn't have felt it necessary to go on about it?

As Clare herself said in her eloquent response to the knuckle scraping editor John Witherow "When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.

"This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. 'Dyke' is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I've had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me."

The British press’ attitude to sexuality was exposed again on Saturday when the bloke who won X-factor felt it necessary to give an interview to The Sun saying that he was gay.

As we know there is only one reason for doing this, it is because he got a phone call from The Sun saying that they were going to “out” him so it was his choice how the story came out, the revealing interview or the exposé.

The Award for British Sporting Success of the Week,

Well, we have loads to choose from this week. The European Athletics Championships have done taking place this week and it has been going really rather well for Team GB.

Highlights include the brilliant Jessica Ennis winning gold in the Heptathlon, Mo Farah wins the 5,000m and the 10km and Welsh pair Dai Greene and Rhys Williams secured a one-two finish for the British team in the men's 400m hurdles final. This leaves us 2^nd in the medal table (at the time of writing).

The first cricket test against Pakistan is going very well and looks like England will wrap up a win in under 4 days and finally Shanaze Reade has won her 3^rd BMX World Championship.

Who needs footballers anyway.

Yesterday we went to London again, which was nice. Significant Other went to Knit Nation and I had a day by myself.

We travelled up together on the train which can be fun but it is an experience that is shaped mostly by those with whom you share a carriage.

For most of our journey to the capital I was jealous of the absolute certainty of opinion being expressed by the 2 conversing couples sat across the aisle from us. Every dull subject, why he won’t us BT to dentistry rip offs, was being covered with Daily Express like attention to detail.

I think that this sort of thing is the reason I like going to places with high numbers of non-English speakers speaking their own language, is that I can’t understand them, a relief in it’s self, and I assume that they are discussing matters of great import and are not telling some slightly racist anecdote.

Anyway, my day was most enjoyable. I went to the Horniman (yes, it is a funny name) Museum which was great. Yes they do have an over stuffed dead Walrus (the story goes that the taxidermist had never seen a Walrus and didn’t realise that they are supposed to have many folds of skin and just kept stuffing) but it is so much more. Had lunch in Chinatown and then to the National Portrait Gallery,

Quickly back to the Museum, it now has an aquarium as well, which contains jelly fish,

I hope you all have a lovely week. I will try and decide what I'm doing about this blog in the week, in the mean time do feel free to listen to the podcast and, maybe, leave a nice review on Itunes (search for DORC in the podcasts bit) or on Podbean, thank you xx

DORC Podcast Episode 3

2010-07-26T18:50:00.001+01:00

There is a new episode of the DORC podcast here and it’s on Itunes, search for DORC in the podcasts bit. Hope you enjoy it. Oh and please tell your friends and stuff, if you enjoy it that is, thank you xx

Diana Watch

2010-07-25T09:44:00.000+01:00

Ref.#: LIUK/5020/0291/89
£1,500,000.00 British Pounds Liverwood award WINNER, held in July 2010.

For claims send form;
Complete Name..
Address/Country..
Telephone..
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Tel: 00447031802258 : Reply to: liverwish1@aol.com
Liverwood Promotion

Really, these phisers really aren’t trying that hard any more.

Ok so it turns out that you can get broadband access in Kent, who knew? Anyway as I am away this weekend I have only have time for a few awards,

The Award for A Joke That No One In Their Right Mind Would Ignore of the Week,

Former US Vice President (and Dark Lord of the Sith) Dick Cheney has had a pump fitted into his chest to assist his heart. Mr Cheney has spent most of his life battling with congestive heart failure and, some far, has had 5 heart attacks, the first of which occoured when he was only 37.
One of the stranger side effects of this sort of pump is that Dick now has no pulse. Come on admit it, we are all think the same thing, I didn’t know he had a heart.

The Award for Oddest David Cameron Description of the Week,

The Daily Express describe David Cameron as Ironman Cameron, no it really did! Look there, under the headline, “Ironman Cameron Slams The Release of Evil Al Megrahi”

Oh come on that’s funny. Ironman! He is a Superhero to the Express it seems.

The Award for a Sentence That Will Cheer Most People Up of the Week,

Goldman Sachs profits fall by 82%. Whilst it is a shame that they are still in business it is heart warming to know that they are making less money.

The Award for Not Being a Great Surprise of the Week,

Earlier this year the Times newspapers online edition disappeared behind a paywall. It was seen as a bold experiment by News International as very few other media outlets were charging for their online newspapers. What would happen? Would revenue from adverts drop away as traffic numbers fell but be replaced by subscription charges so that the site broke even or maybe, possably turned a profit? Who knew? Well no one did and they still don’t as News International are not releasing any figures. What we do know is that traffic through the site is down by about 90%.

The Award for Having an End Clearly Written By Disney of the Week,

Muttiah Muralitharan, perhaps the world's greatest bowler has retired. Some will still claim that his bowling style is illegal within the rules of cricket, these people are idiots. Yes he has a funny looking arm but it is still a legal bowling action.
Anyway, enough angry Wisden style rants, his last game finished on Thursday. When it began he had taken 792 test wickets, already way ahead of his nearest rival, but would he make the magic 800 wickets? During the game he had taken 7 wickets leaving him on 799.
During the second Indian innings his bowling partner Lasith Malinga was ripping through the team, would there be one wicket left for Muralitharan?
Of course there would. By it's very nature, when the last Indian batsman was out it was the end of their second innings whatever bowl of the over it was, so if Muralitharan was bowling you could legitimately claim that he got his 800th wicket with his last ever ball in professional cricket. Can you guess what happened? Of course you can.
Muralitharan bowled, Pjagyan Ojha edged it and Mahela Jayawardene took the catch in the slips. 800 test wickets for Muttiah Muralitharan.
That he is the greatest bowler is not up for discussion but he still has not bowled the single greatest ball of all time. That honour goes to the mighty Shane Warne,

There's a song about that ball you know, it's by the Duckworth Lewis Method and it called Jiggery Pokery and it's fantastic,

The Award for Possibly Ironic Award of the Week,

The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom has given a “Quality Badge” to a zoo in Wraxall, near Bristol, in recognition of its educational programme. What is wrong with that you may ask, well the full name of the zoo is Noah’s Ark Zoo. Getting anything yet? Noah's Ark? Where is that from....umm... oh yes that is mentioned in Genesis isn't it, the first book of the bible. Oh indeed it is well educated reader of mine, for this is a creationist zoo, and yes, such places do exist.
It looks like a very good zoo, the website is lovely, but there, on the end of the navigation bar is the problem. The bit marked Evolution and Creation.
To be fair to the Council for Learning Outside of the Classroom (who need a snappier name by the way) the zoo may have a very well run and excellently organised education system, it;s just that they are teaching absolute bollocks.

I think that will do, I'm off to Whitstable Oyster Festival. Have a good week what ever you do. Oh and if you haven't listen to it yet, maybe you might like to give the podcast a brief moment of your time. Click here to listen

Podcast

2010-07-23T11:43:00.001+01:00

Episode 2 of the podcast is here and it is on Itunes.

Podcast

2010-07-19T13:18:00.001+01:00

I've tried something new, I have made a podcast, you might like it, you might not, see what you think.You can listen to it here.

Diana Watch

2010-07-18T10:05:00.002+01:00

Good Sunday to you all, how are we all today? Good I hope. I don't think that there will be a Diana Watch next week as I will be in Kent visiting Significant Other's mother. I might be able to do it but it seems unlikely, best you make the most of this one.

The French have become the first country in Europe to make it illegal to wander down the Street with your face covered. This is of course a problem for those who like to wear balaclavas or who tend to walk about with a full face motorcycle helmet on but they probably shouldn't worry, this legislation is not aimed at them.

According to Radio 4's The Moral Maze there are 6 million Muslims in France, I think that it's safe to assume that about half of them will be woman, but only 1,900 wear the full burqa yet the French Government has seen fit to waste a lot of time debating and voting on a law that effects 1,900 who they don't like. This is not the smallest group ever to have specific laws passed that effect them alone, the British Government (under Labour) passed laws that were specifically aimed at moving the protester Brian Haw from Parliament Square. It failed.

The arguments for a ban seem to run as follows, Woman should not be forced to wear a veil against their will, Ah, a good one, make it seem like you are on their side, on the side of choice and freedom and it is a good point but in order to do this you are forcing them NOT to wear a veil. There is no choice there.

It's not good for community cohesion; it marks them out as different and stops communication. I bring you, again, to the point that only 1,900 woman are wearing them, I don't think that they have that big of an effect. The numbers are homoeopathically small. France is hardly a model of social integration as it is. The Islamic community already feel marginalised and disenfranchised so passing laws aimed directly at them won't help. Oh and whilst a covered face does make it harder to communicate with someone, it doesn't make it imposable. I don't communicate with the woman who lives next door to me, it's not because her face is covered (it isn't by the way), it's because she is an arse. Social Cohesion is a little more complex then the French Government would have you believe.

As pointed out on the Moral Maze a woman can wonder around the park in a bikini and walk down the street wearing not much more and that is fine, try and have some modesty on the other hand. Now that is a little bit of a simplistic argument because to Western eyes the veil is a little more than modesty but I think that it is a point worth making because to Muslim eyes (if you can see them) it is about modesty.

Well, this will stop men from forcing woman to wear the veil because the fine for a woman wearing it is small but the fine for a man forcing her is very big indeed. These things are true but how can you enforce it? Is an already subjugated woman going to say “My husband made me do it”, it seems unlikely. There is also the distinct possibility that if woman can't walk down the street veiled then the husband who would have forced her to wear it is instead going to force her to stay indoors. A much better solution.

I ask you, why can't people wear what they like? I can wear a T-shirt that says “Godless Liberal” and you can wear a massive bit of jewellery that depicts a Jew nailed to a wooden cross dying in a horrific manner, that's fine with me.

Of course some of our more right wing papers have used this ban as a jumping off point for their own campaigns against the veil, not because they feel that it suppresses women as they have no problem with that sort of thing, but because it is a Muslim thing and they don't like Muslims.

We all seem to forget the Christianity covers it's most devout woman, they are called Nuns. In fact most religions and lots of cultures are keen on modest dress for woman so why pick on the Burqa? May it simply be because we in the West don't like Muslims very much?

If you want to rape a minor and then get away with it may I suggest that first you make some films that some people like and then move to Switzerland.

First some background. In 1977 Roman Polanski was charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under fourteen, however under a plea bargain he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. He was to be sentenced to some prison time and then deported as he holds dual citizenship in France and Poland but in February 1978 he fled to France and in Europe he has stayed.

Fast forward to 2009 and Mr Polanski was trying to enter Switzerland to pick up lifetime achievement award from the ~~Catholic Churc~~h Zurich Film Festival but was arrested at the border by some heavily armed but very friendly Swiss border guards citing an outstanding US arrest warrant from 1978.

He was then placed under house arrest whilst the Swiss decided what to do with him as the Americans were very keen for him to return to their shores.

This brings us up to date. This week, after 9 months of deliberation, a Swiss judge decided that convicted child abuser Roman Polanski should not be extradited back to America to serve his time. This has annoyed the Authorities in California some what. Los Angeles county district attorney Steve Cooley said that the Swiss decision a "disservice to justice and other victims as a whole". Polanski is now free and is thought to have returned to Paris. The French don't extradite anyone.

Right, let's get on with some awards,

The Award for Surprise of the Week,

You may have noticed that last Sunday saw the final game in the FIFA World Cup (which I was home in time for following the Christening. Oh and I have proved that there is no God. I stood in front of a Church full of people and said that I believed in God and rejected the Devil, (why would I do that? He has all the best tunes, I mean have the heard the Christian ones? Shine Jesus Shine, it’s no wonder he hasn’t returned to Earth in his shining gloriousness if that is the best they can do) which were lies, and I wasn’t struck down.) and I watched it, like all right thinking people, on the BBC. The coverage was better, there were no adverts to make you miss goal and, more importantly, no Adrian Chiles. I was one of about 18 million people. What is bafflingly though is that about 3.3 million watched ITV! What were they thinking? You people are weird.

The Award for Missed Opportunity of the Week,

The man with just about the funniest name in all of the army is leaving. Sir Jock Stirrup is to stand down as head of the British Army. This is sad news to all people who find his name extremely amusing.

Whilst it is sad for me it is also an opportunity for the army to promote someone with an equally funny name and, to be honest, I think that it is their duty. Think of the soldier’s morale. You are about to go into battle for Queen and Country. You are scared. You don’t know if you are ever going to see your loved ones again. And then you think of those inspiring words so eloquently spoken, rousing, stirring words that moved you to your very soul. And then you think of his really funny name and you go into battle with a stupid grin. That is what these brave young men and women deserve and what do the army give them? Sir David Richards? What's funny about that?

The Award for Just Being A Bit Confusing of the Week,

I don’t like Prince Charles very much, from his views on Architecture to his love of “alternative” medicine (there is medicine or there isn’t, there is no alternative, well maybe death. To quote many people, “Do you know what we call alternative medicine that works? Medicine) I find him annoying.

He has ruined a perfected pleasant couple of fields with the stupid vanity project that is Poundbury and he attempts to stop new developments that he doesn’t like. His Foundation for Integrated Health (recently closed down due to fraud) promotes pseudo-science, such as detox (you have a liver, that’s what it’s there for) and homeopathy. He is proud to be an enemy of the enlightenment. That and I don’t like his Duchy Original biscuits and they cost too much. I don’t like him any pretty much anything he says.

All of these things I have stated before but this week he said something sensible. He did it in a way that showed he has a degree of self awareness but that doesn't take away from the fact that he usually speaks nonsense. He accused those who deny climate change of ‘peddling pseudo science'.

Some would now retort, “It takes one to know one” but that would be childish. Fun (and possible accurate) but childish never the less. Whilst he did acknowledge that he has been accused of doing exactly the same himself and the irony of him accusing somebody else doing it wasn't wasted on him.

The Award for Surprising Country Being Cooler Than Here of the Week,

Another Country has pasted us on the Socially Liberal Coolness Table (and yes, I am keeping a chart. If you are very good I might show it too you one day) and it's a surprising one. It seems that Argentina has voted that Gay marriage is ok.

Now correct me if I am wrong but aren't most South American countries Catholic? Well yes they are and Argentina is no exception. Oh dear, they won't be happy about that will they? Of course the Catholic Church (who this week managed to piss off a surprising large amount people by adding to the Churches list of serious crimes, Attempting To Ordinate Woman. Now also on this list is paedophilia but unlike that the raping of children for which you are protected, if you try to or are an ordinated woman they will excommunicate you, tossers) reacted in the only way it can. It blamed someone else.

In this case Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the highest ranking Catholic prelate in the country, decided that the Argentine Governments pleasantness towards their fellow men and women was in fact the work of the devil. Oh it's always the devil.

Dear The Catholic Church, please try harder on your blaming things. At least try and blame something that actually exists, Love Martyn.

Like I said at the beginning there will probably be no Diana Watch next Sunday, I'm sure you'll cope.

Have a lovely week all, I'm off to weed my allotment as the rain has encouraged everything to grow including the weeds.

Diana Watch

2010-07-11T09:34:00.000+01:00

“So can I ask you why you are applying for asylum in this country Mr John?”

“Well, I am a Gay man and in my country that is illegal. If I am caught being gay then I will imprisoned or worse, I could be put to death in a series of excruciatingly painful ways.”

“Well, that is very interesting. So if you are a caught being gay in your country the government of that country may kill you.”

“Yes, that is exactly what could happen. Your England is a reasonably tolerant place. For instance you give Graham Norton his own TV series and he's rubbish.”

“Oh right, ummm...ok..., this is slightly indelicate but can you prove that you are gay?”

“Prove it? How do you mean?”

“Well you could just be saying that you are gay in order to claim asylum here.”

“How exactly should I prove to you that I am gay? Whoa, wait a minute, is that a come-on? Are you coming on to me? Is that how you want me to “prove it” to you? I'm flattered obviously but you’re not my type.”

No, god no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant, oh actually I don't know. Well, ummm, do you like Rufus Wainwright? How about show tunes? Kylie? How about funny coloured cocktails with little umbrellas in? Judy Garland perhaps?”

“I'm sorry? Those seem to be very crudely drawn stereotypes. Do you work for a tabloid?”

“Well, that is a good point but I have one question,”

“Yes,”

“In your own country, have you tried not being gay? Have you considered not standing out so much and doing more, less gay things? Have you thought about not going out so much, staying indoors a little more? In short, have you tried not being gay?”

Up until the middle of this week this was pretty much how interviews with the UK's Border Agency were like. It was actual policy to advice people to go home and try and be less gay. 98% of those who applied for asylum on the grounds of sexuality were turned down at he first attempt.

The Supreme Court has ruled that 2 gay men, one from Cameroon and one from Iran, have the right to stay in the UK.

Lord Hope, who read out the judgement, said: "To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.

"Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight." That, my friends, is a beautiful judgement.

The response to this case has shown again that the coalition Government seems to be considerably more liberal than it's predecessor.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the judgement is in line with the Governments stance (although probably not hers as is not the most Gay friendly MP you have ever come across), adding “We have already promised to stop the removal of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.”

Of course not everyone was happy with the decision, can you guess who they might be? Why yes, it was the Daily Express,

oh and the Mail and the Star and most of the other papers to be honest but to be honest I don't care. They are uncaring, unpleasant bastards, everyone. I understand that this subject is like a dog whistle for these idiots, it has the words Asylum and Gay in it thus combining two of their least favourite things, but never the less, their response was rabid and incredibly unpleasant. I assume that no one who works for these papers or knows anyone who works for these papers is Gay because if you did know someone and yet you still wrote that shit, what sort of bastard would you be?

Why should the reason that your country wants to kill you make any difference to how we treat you? Politics, sexuality, hair colour, religion, ethnicity, what difference does it make? They want to kill them, that is all that matters.

To be honest the reaction of the press to this story of equality has made me really very angry and upset so I think we should move on to the awards, that and we need to get on because there is a Grand Prix and some football match or other on and (depending on what time you read this) you may want to watch it, I however will be at a fucking Christening. I mean, how bad is their timing? Significant Other has posh friends who care not for such things as sport, bugger.

Oh and as an Atheist can I be a God Parent? Well I am about to find out. If I am still on twitter at about 8 o'clock Sunday evening there is no God. I will have stood up in a church and said that I will, should it's parents have died in a tragic Pimms based accident (they are very posh), look after the child and teach it about God. Teach it about how he's real and not made up by people. If I can do all that whilst being and atheist so obviously lying in a church about God and haven't been struck down then there is no God.

The Award for Very Sensible Decision of the Week,

Some people have really, really bad hair. I believe that the law should be changed so that hairdressers have the right to say “No, that will make you look rubbish”.

It seems, for the first time that I am aware of, that my ideas mesh completely with that of the Iranian Government. They have introduced government sanctioned hairstyles.

They seem to have taken against, what you may describe as, flamboyant “Western” hair cuts. I will be watching President Ahmadinejad locks very closely from now on to make sure he is sticking to the chart.

The Award for Back down of the Week,

To be honest I am going to try and mention President GoodLuck Jonathan every week simply because he has a cracking name.

Last week we heard that he had banned his countries football team for international competition for 2 years after their poor performance in the World Cup but this week it seems he has changed his mind. This is basically because of threats from FIFA to remove funding for Nigeria’s football association and stop that countries referees working outside Nigeria.

The Award for Failing to Understand What a Word Means,

To be honest it happens quite a lot but this week it annoyed me. If you are a newspaper and you have a story that no one else has then, and only then, can you use the word “Exclusive”. If another paper has the story as well then you can’t use it and, obviously, nor can they.

At least the Sun were good enough to admit that others had this story by not using that word,

The Award for Trying to Make Ends Meet (That is a bad pun by the way),

So you type in “large tits” and “nurse” into your favourite porn based search engine and find what looks like a satisfactory piece of film to watch (is critique the wrong word?) and you click on play. That is quite a good set you think to yourself, suddenly distracted from the stilted dialogue and hackneyed plot, they have spent some money on that. You mind is suddenly back on the action when the woman offers to do something that no one that you have ever met (or are likely to meet) has ever admitted to liking or confirm that it is physically possible.

Those little touches on the set draw your eye into the background of the shot again, really they have worked hard on that, it almost looks like…… No wait, it can’t be, can it? There is no way it could be but it does look at little like that London hospital that I stayed in. I can’t imagine that they would rent out a closed ward to a production company not knowing fully what sort of film that they intended to make, could they?

The Award for Pot Calling the Kettle Black of the Week,

Eric Pickles has launched an irony free attack on “Non-Jobs” that some Britain's councils advertise. This man is Communities Secretary.

The Award for Being A Bit of A Dufus,

You remember last week when it was pointed out that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had not seen/ignored evidence that Jamie Oliver's healthy school lunch thing had actually done some good, well he also said that the number of pupils having the meals had gone down. He was wrong. Again.

The School Food Trust carried out a survey that showed that the number of pupils having schools meals was up 2.1% in Primary Schools and 0.8% in Secondaries. Whilst that isn't a massive rise it is still a rise, the exact opposite of what Mr Lansley said.

Whilst we are on about the lovely Government, what do you think is the best way to fund advertising for anti-obesity drives? The last Government thought it was a good idea to pay for them themselves with public money as it is a public health issue. This way you get no interference from fat food floggers. This is not the way that the new Government goes about things.

Andrew Rapidly-becoming-a-twat Lansley has cut the Governments budget and hopes that the short fall will be made up by companies whose products make you fat.

If there was ever a doubt that the Tories weren't as right wing as they used to be I believe that this one thing has cleared that up. You make people fat and we'll clear up the mess but we won't try and damage your profits by telling people not to eat your products. We were wondering would you do that?

The Government seem to expect Mars to advertise the Mars bar on one hand and then voluntarily pay for some adverts that say that Mars bars are bad for you. I'm sure that Cadbury want to pay for something that tells you not to eat Cadbury products because they are not good for you.

Can I just make it clear that I don't like Andrew Lansley.

I'm sure you are wondering “Is there still oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day?”. Why yes, yes it is but BP, or British Petroleum as the Daily Mail and Express really hate hearing them called, are really, really trying to stop it now. As long as the weather holds. And the new top fits.

I'm not saying that I am overly influenced by popular culture but every time I hear someone saying “Spy Swap” I have an image in my head very similar to this,

If it doesn't take place on a foggy bridge it doesn't count.

The sun is still out so let's make the most of it, take the week off week. If we are really honest with ourselves we will realise that most of us won't be missed, not really.

Have a fun week.

Diana Watch

2010-07-04T09:03:00.000+01:00

“So, I hear your a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobe now Mel.”

And so

England

lost to

Germany

last Sunday, not by putting up a decent fight but by rolling over and letting the Germans tickle their bellies. They were embarrassingly poor and after the game the National discussion turned to whom or what was to blame.

We, as a nation, like to blame simple things, we don’t like complex or nuanced arguments, so we usually end up blaming the manager and firing him. It is a system that has worked well for us for the last 40 years (it has helped keep us from lifting anything shiny and cup shaped since 1966) and we are not going to start changing it now.

Other countries deal with the national humiliation that is an early exit in different ways. The French for instance, who looked like a team made up of 17 year old boys who had been forced to go on one last family holiday to the seaside, have taken their very early exit extremely badly and the Government have decided that, whilst denying that they are interfering, they need to have an inquiry. The manager and the Ex-head of the French Football Federation (he resigned after their defeat) have already been called into see Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who is not in the greatest of moods anyway as the annual Presidential hunt will be cancelled this year. More will follow.

English scapegoating and French investigations and sulking are nothing compared to the reaction in

Nigeria

and it's brilliantly named President Goodluck Jonathan.

They, like the French, came home after the group stage much to the disgust of the Nigerian people. Their new President reacted in way that I think may have taken a few people by surprise, he banned the team from International competition for 2 years.

The Presidents special advisor has said that this will “enable

Nigeria

to reorganise its football” and they have also dissolved the Nigerian Football Federation. An interim board will appointed.

Now that is a punishment.

After a couple of weeks of silence (well they did Excommunicate a Nun who sat on the Ethics committee at a hospital that approved an abortion for a woman who had a real chance of dying if the pregnancy continued, nothing happened to the men though, curious) the Catholic Church strikes back.

The offices of the Church in Leuven, central

Belgium

, were raided last week and Police Officers seized nearly 500 files and a computer. Prosecutors said that the raids concerned alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures". They also searched the Church's headquarters.

The raids happened whilst Bishops were having a meeting and the Police refused to let them leave and they were also not allowed to communicate with the outside world. This is all normal procedure according to

Belgium

's justice minister Stefaan De Clerck.

This has not gone down well inside the

Vatican

who alleged that during the 9 hours that the Bishops were held they were not allowed any food or water, a charge that has been strongly denied by Belgian authorities.

Now at this point you would think that the Vatican may had learnt from it's previous PR mistakes and it would just say that they were helping the Police with their inquiries. I mean that would be the sensible thing to do, just keep your head down and maybe no one will notice. Did they do this? Did they bollocks. It’s paint yourself as the victim time in the

Vatican

again.

The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said that the raids were “serious and unbelievable" and that "There are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes," ooh nice touch. It worse here than under the communist, stop picking on us, it’s not like we have systematically covered up years of sexual abuse is it? Why should we be investigated under the same laws and rules as other people? Our leader is infallible!

Speaking of the Pope, do you think that he stayed out of it? Did he use this moment to distance himself from his loud-mouth Cardinal? No, no he didn’t. He described events as “deplorable". No, the deplorable thing here is the covering up and sexual abuse, I thought we’d been through this.

He sent a message to the Bishops Conference of Belgium that said “I want to express, dear brother in the Episcopate, as well as to all the Bishops of Belgium, my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out." How dare they search us, don't they not know who we are?

Mr De Clerck (Justice Minister) said the

Vatican

's reaction had been excessive and it was based on false information. Is he accusing the

Vatican

of lying? Oh please let him be doing that. It must make Belgians proud to be Belgian; it would if I was one of them. No deferential treatment of the arrogant, justice obstructing Church.

I’m a bit confused now. After a few weeks of 80’s style, and by that I mean things that would make Thatcher proud, Tory policy announcements, the Government seem to have gone a bit, well.. ummmmm…… liberal.

Firstly they seem to have announced that there will be an inquiry into whether

Britain

played any part in torturing terror suspects, mostly in other countries.

Now, they may just be doing this just so that they can discredit the last Government which would make it a little cynical but does the motivation behind the announcement undermine the significance and potential impact of it? I don’t think so. As long as the inquiry is independent who cares why it has been called.

I’m sure that there are a lot a people in the country that think that it is ok to torture people “if it helps National Security” but it really doesn't. The information you receive from the torturee is rarely helpful (they have a tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear or just plain make things up) and it undermines your moral authority.

And then Wednesday saw Ken Clarke (one of the few Tories I actually quite like. He likes Europe a bit, single malts and has done several series for Radio4 on jazz. He seems to understand that life is for enjoying but not at the expense of others. Yes he does/did sit on the board of British American tobacco but he has some redeeming features unlike most Tories) announced that there were too many people in prison and that short sentences don’t work. He said that we should focus more on rehabilitation.

I’m scared now Mummy, what has happened to them?

During the election campaign the Tory party criticised the Labour Government for early release scheme and the Liberal Democrats pointed out that both parties polices were mostly a who can lock the most people up dick-swinging contest, I’m paraphrasing there but the point stands. Now, however, the new Government seems to have come round to the LibDem way of thinking. Or have they?

Have they become more liberal because it will probably be cheaper? Did this “Road to Damascus” moment strike the eyes of Ken Clarke before or after he was told that he had to make budget savings of 25%? But again, does it matter what the motivation behind the announcement is? Well maybe. If there is a lack of belief will enough effort be put in?

Usually it is people in other parties or in the press that deliberately “misinterpret” what a politician says but this happened to Ken Clarke when he was attacked by the very scary Michael Howard.

Mr Howard is a proper, lock 'em up and throw away the key, type of Tory who famously said to conference, whilst sounding like he had just spotted the neck of a very tasty virgin in the front row, “Prison Works”.

After Mr Clarke's speech he announced that he wasn't convinced by it and that “Serious and persistent criminals need to be put in prison,". Yes, I think we all agree on that point but that was not what Ken was saying, did you not listen or was this just a prepared, trotted out, half thought through response?

Or was it more cunning than that? Was the whole, rather underplayed by the press, statement aimed deliberately at the Tory base? Was it pre-approved by the Party? Was it allowed because it was all part of a plan, look a bit liberal by talking about rehabilitation and community sentences but then point out that serious offences will be punished?

There are spies amongst us people! Well there are in the

anyway. I have to admit that I was surprised by people who were surprised about this. We have MI6 and the

has the CIA, what do you think they are doing, crochet?

Anyway, back to my point. The English press reacted in the only way that it knows, find out if one of the people involved was a woman and if a woman is implicated in anyway the next question is, is she hot? If so then plaster her on every front page and seem surprised that an attractive woman can do anything but appear in FHM with very little on (unless you are the Daily Mail where you offended that FHM exists but you print the pictures anyway saying how terrible they are. “Look at them! There are awful! See this woman with virtually nothing on, it’s dreadful!”). For another example of this there is also the murder of Meredith Kercher in which we were treated to pictures of Amanda Knox whose crime was somewhat diminished by the press nicknaming here “Foxy Knoxy”.

Right, let’s do the awards as there is some tennis on soon (unless you are reading this after Sunday afternoon) and I want to watch it,

The Award for A Great Film’s Anniversary of the Week,

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Airplane! Happy birthday to you.

I know it’s silly and I know it’s childish but Airplane! is one of my favourite films and it is 30 years old this weekend. It is film that is so gag heavy that I am still finding new sight gags in it now. It's always possible that I am still finding new gags in it because I haven’t really concentrated that hard enough on it the innumerable times I have watched it before but I like to think that it is because it is so well written. It isn’t, it’s because I haven’t really concentrated that hard on it when I’ve watched it before.

The Award for Just Being A Much Cooler Country Than Ours of the Week

Iceland

may have had a bit of an effect on World finance but they are still are very, very cool country. I don’t think that in comparison to Iceland David Cameron government look even slightly progressive.

Iceland

have elected a woman Prime Minster, Johanna Sigurdardottir, ok we’ve done that, once. She is Gay; ok they are moving ahead of now. She was in a Civil Partnership, ok we have them (but we don’t have Gay marriage is beyond me.)

Now if she had taken advantage of a recent change in Icelandic law and married her partner then that would be cooler than the soles of a bare footed Bjork standing on a glacier.

What’s that you say? She has now married her partner, oooh, I think that is a level of progression and coolness that we will never ever get close too.

The Award for Scary Video of The Week,

I genuinely try not to get involved in the politics of other countries (no, honest I do) as it has very little to do with me but when the lovely @waccachica linked to this on twitter I couldn’t really ignore it now could I,

Now I assumed that it was some sort of well crafted joke as it hits all the Republican stereotypes that you can think of (If she had been yellow and had only 3 fingers on each hand I would have assumed that she was drawn by Matt Groening) but it seems it isn’t. This Pamela Gorman really is standing and this really is a campaign advert. Still don’t believe me? Well there is a website for her if you want to see, it’s here.

Sort of makes me grateful to live in

England

really, I mean we my have our own problems but it really could be much worse.

So Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary, told the BMA conference that lecturing people on their health and diets doesn't work (we don't lecture people, we tell them what is health as I can assure you that they really, really don't know) and has sighted Jamie Oliver's healthy school lunch thing because less people have school lunches then before.

A number of things wrong with this, 1) So? If the children wanted Crack should the school provide that? If the children want really unhealthy food should the school provide that? I don't think so, they should be setting an example and 2) Jamie's little crusade has had a positive effect, you can read about it here on Tim Harford's blog (Yes he is the bloke who presents Radio4's More or Less but I'm not obsessed).

It seems the a Government Minister is either ignoring or unaware of evidence that disproves their ideology.

I think that that will do for now, have a super fun week, it seems that the sun will continue to shine.

A day in the life of Simon Jenkins

2010-06-28T08:15:00.002+01:00

A day in the life of Simon Jenkins, writer of nonsense and target of spoof blog posts (the reasons for this are explained here), I hope you enjoy it.

Science, rubbish isn't it. I mean it's all numbers and relative risk. It's impenetrable quantum physics nonsense about Particle Duality. I mean really, can something really be in 2 places at once? Of course it can't, how stupid. Can that tree over there be in somewhere else whilst I can see it? No and, while I'm at it, Schrodinger should be reported for his abuse of that cat. I mean putting it in a box is just cruel.

I, like many other people who don't understand something, find my lack of intellectual fitness no hindrance to criticising it. In fact I find my own lack of understanding as a justification for hating something.

Whenever I see a science story on the science stuffed BBC or in a newspaper it is as if someone is ringing a bell somewhere and I cannot help myself but dribble slightly and write an incredibly smug and, in my not at all humble opinion, very witty column saying how rubbish it is and how much money is wasted on research into stupid things that I don't understand and, therefore, don't think are of any use.

Obviously I spend my time trying to avoid anything scientific. I am awoken everyday by my clock radio that has an Ipod connection and have a nice cup of tea from my Teasmade. Breakfast and a shower and then I get dressed. Only natural fibres for me nothing man-made.

Then on to check me E-mail and the Daily Mail website to see what I should be offended by and should complain about. Yes, I except that this is a bit sciencey but it's hardly the LHC is it?

It is hard to avoid science in modern life but it can be done and by the time lunch rolls around I have worked up a bit of an appetite. It's usually a microwave something for me. I can have whatever I like to eat because my local Waitrose has absolutely everything, all year round, it's brilliant!

A short nap after lunch is required, I am getting on a bit you know, but after that I ready to go again. A slight headache has developed so a quick trip to the medicine cabinet is required. Sorting through the packets of tablets, pushing aside the Permethrin cream and my PPI, I find the aspirin and take a couple.

It is a lovely day so I go for a short work, not for too long though, a column won't write it's self, I'm not Richard Littlejohn.

Down by the river the views are lovely, ducks and swans paddling around, raising their young. They don't need science to have a lovely life. I take their picture, as I step over a dead duck, on my digital camera. I get some lovely pictures on it, no idea how it works though, can't imagine that any part of it won one of those pointless Noble Prize things.

Key in the lock to let me back in the house and disarm the burglar alarm. Cup of tea and a little rest before getting on with some work, well maybe an episode of Quincey on ITV4.

Some ill-informed typing does get done without the need to do any research and then it's dinner time, meat and 2 veg (from around the World again) as you would expect with a cheeky little Chilean red.

My evening usually consists either of my Miss Marple box set on Blu-Ray or Radio 3 on my DAB and then to bed. As my head hits my hypo-allergenic pillow I think about how much science I haven't used that day and how it has no effect on my life. I fall asleep smiling at the certainty with which I hold my views and the ridicule I pour upon others who search to find the answers to questions that I can't even imagine. A tamazepam helps me to sleep and to over come the terrible emptiness that gnaws away inside me.

Diana Watch

2010-06-27T10:04:00.000+01:00

Good news, it's not just the Express that prints pictures of Princess Diana on their front page, sometimes other people do too. Look, here she is on The Times,

I'm in a bit of sports frenzy at the moment what with the World Cup, Wimbledon, Cricket and a Grand Prix this weekend as well. I am barely leaving the house at the moment which is a shame because the weather is lovely.

Depending on when you read this England are about to play Germany or have played Germany in the World Cup so I say this*, Come on England/Well played England/Not out on penalties again/Well, they were the better team on the day/That ball is awful, so light and round. *delete as appropriate.

Have you seen Star Wars? What do you mean no? Stop reading this, go and buy it on DVD and watch it and then continue reading otherwise you won't get the next reference.

You know that bit in Episode 4 when the Death Star destroys Alderaan and when it happens Obi-Wan says he has felt a disturbance in the Force, like 1 million people cry out at once and then were silent? You remember that bit? See told you this would mean nothing to you if you hadn't seen the film. Anyway, that's how I felt when I heard the Nadine Dorries and David Tredinnick had managed to weasel themselves onto the Science and Technology Committee. 1 million Geeks, Nerds and Skeptics cried out at once and then were silent. Well until they got their breaths back from the collective scream and started Twittering and blogging about this adoration.

Now I know that to get onto a committee you have to want to get onto that committee but surely there should be some sort of test to see if you are qualified to pass judgement on the subjects the committee will discuss, in this case maybe GCSE science. Here come the Dark Ages, austere Dark Ages at that.

I would go and hide in a cave until it is all better but for the fear that Prince Charles would be there extolling the virtues of this kind of architecture.

This however is not a time for retreat, the morons are strong but we can be stronger. They may have one or two people now on the inside and Prince Charles is still interferes more than a constitutional Monarch should (I know that technically he is not yet the Monarch but he should be practising the sort of opinion withholding that his mother does so well.) but this is the perfect time for the rational people to strike back. Let them witter on about how Surgeons don't operate under a full moon because it effects blood clotting or how a foetus can punch it's way out of a womb (maybe she was misquoting a Chuck Norris joke), they get some attention for themselves and look silly but then the way is open for sensible people to correct them and look, well, sensible.

Remember when strangely faced Michael Gove was trying to sell us all the idea of Free Schools? Do you remember how we heard the word “Sweden” more times then the Divine Comedy album Fin De Siecle? Sweden, Sweden, Sweden, Sweden.

He point was that Sweden used the free school system and it was bloody brilliant. What we needed was some sort of study that could tell us if he was right or not.

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? No, it's a study about the Swedish free schools system and guess what, they are not as good as Tory Boy (and I mean that in an unpleasant way) has been making out.

A report, published in Research in Public Policy, has found what we all thought. Those that do best from this sort of system are pupils from educated, professional homes. Report author Rebecca Allen from the Institute of Education has found that "The impact on low-educated families and immigrants is close to zero," well that's ok, this Government don't really seem to like them anyway. The report went on, "The researchers also find that the advantages that children educated in areas with free schools have by age 16 do not translate into greater educational success in later life.”

"The evidence on the impact of the reforms suggests that, so far, Swedish pupils do not appear to be harmed by the competition from private schools, but the new schools have not yet transformed educational attainment in Sweden."

So the evidence shows that this system does not help ALL pupils but only those from the right sort of family, so why do this? It seems that this Government (mostly the Tory bits) are making the decisions on ideological grounds rather than based on evidence. That would explain the budget, a small mention of which later.

First they refuse to introduce proper regulation of landlords despite the fact that their trade organisation thinks that it is a good idea and now they cap housing benefit. People will be forced to live in cheap, unpleasant housing that may well be dangerous and there will be nothing that they can do about it.

Run free little markets, run free. Don't you worry who you hurt, you just go and have fun, make as much money as you can for a very small number of people.

Far be it for me to criticise the mighty BBC but I do feel that they went for the salacious angle of this story when they went with the headline “GP admits viewing pornographic images at Dorset surgery.”

Now that is a very stupid thing to do but this GP was up in front of the GMC, it can't have just that can it?

Well, the person who wrote this piece seems to think that it is important, or at least the most interesting to the sites readers. If you read on, however, you learn a little more about how spectacularly inappropriate this Doctor was.

In paragraph 3 we learn he may have been “drunk at the surgery in 2007” and may accessed patient records whilst suspended in 2008 and 2009.

In paragraph 5 we learn he was accused of “inappropriately touching three female colleagues”. Paragraph 6 brings news of a webcam he set up in his surgery and we finish with paragraph 7 that tells us that “Dr Vadas also faces allegations about his care of eight patients and is accused of making threats against a witness”.

Really I don't thing that the porn thing matters that much, it just made a better headline.

Let's get on with the Awards as we all have more important things to do with our day,

The Award for Massive Insanity of the Week,

Jim Corr from the Corrs (you remember them, 3 cloned women and some bloke, he was the bloke) seems to have become more than a little mad.

Thank you to Michael Marshall on twitter for pointing everyone towards Jim Corr's website which is filled with pretty much every conspiracy theory you have ever heard of and many you haven't. The man is a loon.

This is what happens if you hang around with 3 beautiful woman all the time that you have to keep reminding yourself are your sisters and you shouldn't be looking at them like that.

The Award for Incredible, Passionate, Refusing to Loose Sporting Achievement Of The Week,

Yes, yes England played pretty well on Wednesday against the Slitheen (and may also do so again today) but that doesn't even come close to our award winner.

Nicolas Maihut and John Isner played an epic 5 setter at Wimbledon this week.

There is no tie-break in the 5^th set at these championships so you play on until somebody is ahead by 2 games.

The first break points didn't come up until the 101^st game of the set. Yes you did read that right. The score was 50 games all. At this point they had been playing for nearly 9 hours, over 2 days.

Until Wednesday the longest match at Wimbledon had lasted 6hr and 9 minutes, the 5^th set of this match alone lasted longer than that.

The 5th set ended 70-68 after 11 hours and 5 minutes of play. It was played over 3 days. Both players served over 100 aces. It was just incredible.

The Award for Fantastic Misdirection Of The Week,

David Cameron was so very proud of the Conservative Party restoring the link between pensions and earnings, so proud in fact that he mocking Labour during Prime Minister's Questions for not doing it whilst they were in office.

Is it such a great thing? I mean, it would have been a great thing when earnings rises were high and inflation was low. I wonder what it's like now?

Well, George Osborne announced that public sector pay will be frozen for a few years and, as we all know, the general economy is a bit fucked and many private companies have frozen pay as well. What about inflation you ask? Inflation is creeping up, well it's about 3.4%, down from 3.7% the month before but still higher than it was.

So it seems that inflation is higher than the rise in earnings. The increase in pensions for your Granny is going to be less under the Tories than it would have been if they had left the system alone and yet they trumpet this a “progressive”. Welcome to our brave new world.

The Award for Getting More Than You Bargained For of The Week,

So you are in Canada and you decide to steal a lorry. You think, that looks like a nice lorry and the keys are in the ignition, I'll have that one. Really you should check the back of the lorry to see what's in it shouldn't you? No, you're in a hurry, after all you are nicking it, you are sure whatever is in there will be easy to sell on the black market later on. Just take the truck.

After the crime is committed you have time to see what's in the lorry. As you approach the doors you notice that it seems to be making some rather odd noises. With some trepidation you open up the lorry only to be faced with a a Bengal tiger called Jonas and camels named Todd and Shawn.

If you are the person that stole them would you mind terribly giving them back to Bowmanville Zoo in Ontario, they are a little concerned for their animals.

No real mentions for BP this week, oil still floods out into the Gulf of Mexico and they have finally decided to put someone else in charge of capping the leak, but there is a video on YouTube that claims to be footage of some sort of oily rain. I, obviously, can't confirm it's validity but have a look yourselves,

The sun still seems to be out in Britain and it confuses us, although it could be the Tardis burning up I suppose, because it rarely happens we feel we should make the most of every last second of it despite the fact that we know our skin will turn pink, cause us a lot of pain and then peel off. I did see a man on Weymouth seafront on Friday wearing only Speedos and trainers, this is not a good look.

I wish it would rain a little bit, I'm fed up watering the allotment.

Anyway enough of my moaning about how nice the weather is here, have a nice week all.

Guerrilla Gardening

2010-06-21T17:50:00.001+01:00

I’m not sure if this should go on the Allotment blog or my general one so I’ve put it both, I’m not sire what I’ll do in the future.

So I've been doing a little more Guerrilla Gardening. There is some bare soil near my house and so I had put plants in it.

On the Guerrilla Gardening website there is a section on how to create seed bombs but I didn't want to do that. The small area is “looked after” by someone who is a supposed professional but can't tell the difference between weeds and plants and has already removed other things that I have planted there that were in flower. This then would need some stealth and cunning. And then I had a thought, plug plants.

I still have some trays left from some Lobelia that I had bought and would be perfect for my little plan. There was a packet or two of wild flower seeds hanging about, under the sink I think, so a little compost in the tray and a sprinkling of seed on top. Now water in and leave for a few weeks, with some regular water obviously, and then you will have little pods of wild flowers that you can plant quickly and with minimum fuss.

Under the cover of darkness, well the middle of a Sunday afternoon anyway, I went over to my little plot around the tree and to the bare earth patch that I wanted to bother and within 15 minutes my work was done and my little plugs of wild flowers were watered in. Give it another couple of weeks and they will be flowering and giving a little joy to all who see them, well that's what I rather egotistical hope.

Oh and for the person who regularly returns this area to bare earth I have made these little signs,

Diana Watch

2010-06-20T14:43:00.002+01:00

So do they think I am a sucker? This person was so keen to get my money that she e-mailed me twice on the same day,

“Trust & Good Faith. I am Mrs Sara Faraj, I am 62 years old from

Kuwait

, I am

suffering from along time cancer of the Lungs which also affected my hearing

ability and my brain. My husband died in a fatal motor accident. Since his

death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and

deposited all the sum of £23M GBP and Two Trunk Box (Family valuables/

Personal Jewelries) with a Private Bank & Securities. I need you to help me

carry out my charity work. Reply through my private

email:sarafarajthomas@advir.com”

Londoners, are you devoid of all human kindness?

We came to your quite nice city yesterday and, as is my want, I tried to make people smile on the underground. All you have to do, if you want to join in, is smile at people first, it's not very hard to do but it is pretty much imposable to win the game by getting them to smile back. You lot really don't like to smile do you?

Yesterday, as others pushed to get onto the grubby little train before allowing those getting off to do so making the whole affair much more difficult than it needs to be, I paused to allow a lady with a pushchair time to get on without getting squashed. I would consider this normal behaviour but judging from the reaction of this lady it's not normal in the London.

“Thank you, thank you very much. That's really kind of you, thank you.” She seemed surprised as if this had never happened to her before. So I ask again, Londoners, are you devoid of all human kindness?

We were in London for the opening of a new shop. Significant Other is a keen knitter and is very taken with a shop in Islington called Loop. They have recently moved premises to a slightly more prominent part of the borough and they opened for the first time yesterday.

They were offering free gift bags for the first 100 customers. Who knew that so many chubby women had such pointy elbows? Bloody hell, these people had absolutely no respect for personal space. This was a shop for the socially inept; it was like Games Workshop for these with jumper bumps.
You can read a more positive view of the visit here as Significant Other has blogged about it.

Enough about the fun bits of my week, how about some news.

And so familiar Tory policies start to leak out. Last week we had David Willets trying to make sure that only rich people could go to the best Universities and now we have them dropping proposed Labour Government legislation that would have seen Landlords and Letting Agencies properly registered and regulated.

The purpose of this regulation was supposed to offer some sort of protection from shoddy treatment for those of us who rent but this is not the free market way. Oh no, you and I exist to get ripped off and fucked over by already wealthy people.

The new Housing Minister Grant Shapps said “It would be difficult to put together and expensive”. So what? I don't care! People need and deserve protection from less honourable rich sorts of people.

I am not the only who is a little pissed of by this, Ian Potter, operations manager of the Association of Residential Lettings Agents, said: “We are extremely disappointed with the Housing Minister’s decision to scrap the previous Government’s plans for the regulation of letting agents. This move risks seriously hampering the improvement of standards in the private rented sector, [its] reputation and the ... role it plays in the wider housing market, as well as failing to protect the consumer, who has nowhere to go when there is service failure or fraud.” Even the people who represent Landlords think that this decision is poor, that's how bad it is.

Whilst I'm having what could best be described as a moan the Government have also started a review of health and safety legislation under the guise of reducing red tape.

Before the election campaign David Cameron had said that he wanted to do this and sighted well worn, Daily Mail type, examples of Elf and Safety gone made. One of his examples was schools making the pupils wear goggles to play conkers. If it was true that that would be a bit ridiculous but it of course it wasn't. One headmistress did it once. So when the review was announced you would have thought that they wouldn't have just gone with cheap, Daily Express-lite, examples wouldn't you. Oh no. When interviewed by the BBC Lord Young, who has been asked to carry out the review, used this example, under current laws “firemen could say they wouldn't go to a fire because it was too dangerous”, umm, I don't think they can.

His point was that the Emergency Services should be exempt from H&S laws because they are "paid for doing a job that involves risk", well to a certain degree I would agree with him but should they be exempt from all legislation? Of course not, that is silly.

The real problem with area of law is not the law it's self but they why that some use it and the Government, to their credit, do want to clamp down on Ambulance chasing and some rather excessive personal injury claims. It is fear of these claims that forces councils and schools into over zealous interpretation of the rules, erring on the side of excessive caution. But again this must be watched.

We, the small people as Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP Chairman, might describe us, (there is a man who needs to get his statements cleared by PR person before he says them. If you are in a hole, stop digging is the phrase but this really doesn't apply to BP, maybe because they think there might be oil at the bottom of that hole.) do need to have some protection from injury because someone couldn't be bothered to do their job properly.

Health and Safety laws exist to stop us being exploited and put in danger by bad employers. If you are doing a dangerous job then the HSE is there to make sure that you are protected correctly.

It does seem that the Government are, again, trying to make laws to aid rich people increase their profit margins at the cost of the workers, comrades!

Best I join a Union I think.

It's awards time again. I have been trying to get Stephen Fry to present these but I haven't had a reply yet so you'll have to put up with me again, sorry about that.

The Award for Really Not Understanding What the Fuck You Are Saying,

Thursday's Daily Express confused me no end. Apparently yoghurt can help end the “misery” of hay fever. Before I carry on I do feel sorry for those with hay fever, it's horrible, now back to mocking a “newspaper” for idiots.

The paper claimed that a new study showed that yoghurt can help stave off the effects of pollen by “boosting the immune system”. WTF?

1, You, as long as you are in reasonable health i.e. not immunocompromised, you can not “boost” your immune system, and 2, as far as I'm aware, the reaction you get from some pollen touching your mucus membranes causing your eyes to stream and your nose to run is a massive over reaction from a really rather active immune system, if anything your immune system needs deepening down.

The article persists with this false premise all the way through. To be fair to the researchers involved I think it was probably the Express that misinterpreted some paper or other rather than some bad research, however the only way that I can think of that yoghurt may help those who suffer from hay fever is if they completely smoother their faces in it therefore making it impossible for the pollen to get though. Effective but impractical.

The Award for Short-Termism of the Worst Sort 2,

Rarely do we have a repeat of an award (I think it may have only happened once before) but this week is one of those weeks.

On Thursday the Government announced that it was going to drop or postpone about £2bn worth of stuff announced by the last lot. Some of these cuts are perfectly reasonable I suppose if you don't have any money left but one of them stood out from the others.

A company called Sheffield Forgemasters was promised an £80 million loan to help buy a 15,000 tonne press. Now not being versed in such things I have no idea what that is but I do know that it would have used to make specialist parts for nuclear power stations and would have provided up to 400 jobs. If fact it would have been so specialist they would have been only the second company in the world to make these parts. That's second company in the WORLD, not country but WORLD! Jesus, what are the Government thinking?

Oh and and they seemed to have axed the rather excellent free swims program for children and the over 60's. Oh and the refurbishment plans for Libraries.

The Award for Thing That Has Made Me Laugh More Than Anything Else This Week,

I know it's lazy to just put YouTube videos on here but this really is very funny,

The Award for Best Radio Program About Numbers and Statistics,

Ok, so I am assuming that there isn’t a great deal of nominations for this rather specific award but I give you the winner, Radio 4's More or Less.

If a person makes a claim using statistics or numbers and someone points it out to them, they will investigate it to find out whether it is correct or not.

Last week Lord Digby Jones, head of the CBI, claimed on the Today programme that we should stop having a go at banks because they pay 25% of all tax that the Treasury receives. Is this true they asked? Umm, no. Their own investigations showed that if you were incredibly generous to the banks they pay about 12.5% of all the tax, still a large amount but 50% less than Sir Digby claimed. Was he available to say where he got his made up figures from? Was he bollocks!

This week the Daily Telegraph was caught out. They published a story that claimed that we are all paying £4000 per year for public services pensions. They said that this figure came from the new Office for Budget Responsibility.

Now, one of them, I'm not sure which one although my money is on the newspaper, got this quite wrong. The actual figure is £400 which is considerably lower. They have now changed this on they on-line edition but have not, as fair as the programme is aware, printed an apology.

You can download past episodes from I-tunes, they really are great and not in anyway dull.

The Award for The Easiest Joke of the Week,

Outside of a church in MONROE, OHIO stands, or at least stood, a really big statue of Jesus. I mean really big, 65ft big. Some have referred to it as the “Touchdown Jesus” as his arms are held aloft in a similar pose as to that taken by an Umpire/referee in American Football just after someone scores a touchdown.

Anyway, it cost about $250,000 to build and has stood there since 2004 offending no one, unless they were cursed with eyes.

It seems, however, that it was not people who were offended by the oddity, oh no, because on the night of the Monday the 14^th of June there was a thunder storm and the statue was struck by lightening and burned down. A much higher force seems to have taken a dislike to this depiction of his son and decided to do something about it.

This giant erection was insured though for a cool $500,000. If you were at the insurance company you now that you would love to be the one dealing with this claim and then refuse on the grounds that the lightening strike was an “act of God”, you know you would.

The Award for Thing I Want Most This Week But May Have Difficulty Trying To Hide From Significant Other,

At London’s International Fine Arts Fair you can buy may a beautiful objet d’art but one will stand out form the others. It is significantly cooler and much, much older than everything else there. It is the fossilised skull of a Tarbosaurus bataa, which is related to a T-Rex I’m told.

It is being sold by a bloke from down the road, well Dorset-based fossil dealer Chris Moore, for the perfect reasonable £125,000. Now I am good for it but I was wondering if one of you could lend me it for a short period? Anyone? Hello? Is this thing on?

Have a good week my freinds, I am hoping to make jam tomorrow.

Diana Watch

2010-06-13T08:20:00.000+01:00

If the subject line of an E-mail is “REGARDS” and then claims to be from a bank, am I right to assume that it is phishing?

It continues “Dear Friend, Compliment of the day to you my name is Garry Loopy finance manager Bank of Scotland, I am contacting you to seek your partnership in a pending business project which i have here in my hand and ready to be executed without hitches,
Please if you are interested do respond back to me via email:
communicatewithgloopy1@live.com”.

I’m right, phishing.

Most people just use the “Report Phishing” button on their e-mail, others however take things a little further, Ladies and Gentlemen I give you ScamBaiters.com. Thank you to my friend Matthew Coffin for that website, he’s a Doctor you know, yes that’s right, Dr Coffin. What? It’s not funny. He’s a fine GP.

I was pretty sure that pretty much all the world was aware that Elton John is gay. I was certain that if I travelled to the deepest parts of the Amazon jungle and played the locals a clip of “Rocket Man” two things would happen, 1, they would immediately worship me as a God for being able to summon up music from nowhere and 2, they would say that the bloke singing it definitely likes men.

It seems, however, that my completely reasonable assumption may have been wrong (that is not a phrase that I type lightly.) It is possible that confirmed and committed homophobe Rush Limbaugh might not be aware of Elton’s gayness.

Rush has got married for the, oh fuck knows, 23^rd time or something and there was some entertainment. It is rumoured that he paid the lover of show tunes and promoter of civil partnerships about $1million to play at the wedding.

For some reason I am thinking that the weddings invites stated a very clear dress code, everyone was asked to wear white, including the hood.

To be honest I was surprised by Rush's choice of star turn at his wedding but I was really very disappointed with Elton's decision to do it (I’m sure my chastisement will sting him). It has become quite clear to me that Elton will sell out everything he believes in for money. Who cares what the paranoid, conspiracy toting bigot says as long as he has the cash.

Some of the British press have been accusing the Obama administration of anti-British rhetoric, which I have to say I haven't noticed, I have just seen people who want to get a private company to clear up the mess they have made, but how have these papers dealt with this perceived attack on this green and pleasant Isle? Why, with anti-Obama rhetoric that's how,

It is the grown up thing to do.

Although it does seem that BP may have done the decent thing and may have decided to with hold their dividend at least this time whilst they try and clear up the massive mess they have made.

Ok, so it might be possible for the fox attacks twins story to be true but what was fantastic was the beyond parody was the response of a local counsellor who was on the lunch time news on radio4 saying how he plans to deal with the fox “problem” and the huge amount of pictures in urban gardens that newspapers where able to print. One even went with “Is this the fox that attacked to children?” I don’t know right wing tabloid newspaper; the thing with foxes is they all look the same to me.

Now, according to an expert in urban wildlife who was on the Today program he had only heard of 2 cases of foxes attacking children in their own homes, 1 of these turned out to be a German Shepard dog and the other was a cat.

I’m not saying that it didn’t happen exactly as the mother said it did, after all the children were admitted to hospital with some blood on them, I’m just saying that the calls for culling and the turning of the urban fox into a bigger threat to our way of life then the Taliban may have been a little tiny bit of an over reaction.

To be honest the Press’ reaction to this story was beyond parody simply because it has already been parodied in The Simpsons. It was in an episode in which a bear wondered into Springfield for the first time ever, resulting in moral panic and the introduction of a bear tax to pay for the bear patrols. It may have been the first outing for the “Won’t somebody please think of the children” line, although I’m sure there is a Simpsons geek who will correct me on that.

Oh and while we are talking about animals being picked on for just being themselves can I draw you attention to the Pod Delusion player just there on the left of the screen because it has a piece from me about the proposed cull of badgers in Wales, it’s quite good. Although since my piece went out the Badger Trust has decided to appeal the decision of the High Court and the Welsh Assembly has postponed the cull.

Is it time for some awards now? I think it is,

The Award for Short-Termism of the Worst Short,

Financial speaking Britain is in a little bit of a hole. We don’t have very much money to spend on nice things like hospitals and social services because some bankers ruined the economy (that doesn’t get mentioned as often as it should, we had to bail them out and they caused a recession, it’s their fault) and some cuts need to be made.

We could spend less money on the NHS but that wouldn’t be very popular despite the fact that saving could be made be closing some services and merging others which would increase the quality of the service but we can’t be bothered to explain that clearly to the voters and we just give in to whoever shouts the loudest. How about the Army? Merging it with the other services? Best not, that might be seen as not supporting our boys. Well can anyone think of a group that, despite the fact that they are really important to the long term prosperity of our country, no one likes? How about students? Brilliant!

In an interview with the Guardian, David Willetts said that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students' degree courses was a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled".Educating young people is a burden! Are we to assume that looking after the sick and elderly will become a burden!

Ok, I’ll calm down a bit. I admit that there are some problems with further education. Some might say that the huge numbers of courses that are available, some of which are not the most intellectually challenging subjects you could imagine might be one of those problems and the slightly arbitrary Labour pledge to get 50% of young people into universities may have placed some extra strain on the system without an increased level of funding to match the rise in students number might be another, but to describe future Nurses, Doctors, Engineers, Designers, Teachers, Scientists etc as a burden? How else does Mr Willets think we are going to make money as a country unless we have the people to design and build products of the future?

I know that it is easy to mock a Tory but it does seem that Mr Willets only wants rich people going to university. The paying of tuition fees is, in my opinion, wrong. If you get a decent degree and then a decent job you will pay more tax in the long run. You are paying back what you have taken from the state. Ok, some will not get great jobs and will not pay that much tax but is that a reason to make their lives even worse by starting their working careers with large debts?

Well they only have to pay back their student loans when they start earning over £15,000 a year, is the return argument. That really isn’t a lot of money; it is £1,250 per month. I used to earn this, just, before tax, when I worked fulltime as Nursing Auxiliary, a job that required no qualifications at all, let alone a degree.

He also suggested a free market on tuition fees with all Universities charging what they liked. This would, of course, mean that the best places would charge more so that only the very wealth could realistically go to say Oxford or Cambridge (some would say it is like that now) and the lesser places would charge, well umm, less, thus creating a 2 tier education system.

It didn’t take them long before they started proposing policies that were aimed at helping the rich. There are some other stupid ideas such as, from the BBC Website, “the idea of students studying for a degree at any university in England, with lectures and classes being held at their local further education college or other institute.” Who is going to teach these lectures? As most colleges are full, where are the lessons going to take place? Oh it's just silly, really silly.

The Award for Services to Making Me Jump Up and Down A Bit,

Supergrass are to split up. They played their last show in the UK on Friday. I have had a soft spot for Supergrass since their first single “Caught by the Fuzz” and have loved them ever since. Bye Bye Supergrass, I will miss your excellent 3 minute pop soongs.

The Award for Best Football Related But Not World Cup Related Song,

Oh and for those who really don’t like football but do want to see the rather pompous way that it is reported on/advertise mocked a bit, here is some Mitchell and Webb,

Things that didn’t make it in this week,

Hydrogen fuel cell cars come to Britain, at last.

26 years after the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal vented poisonous cyanide gas into the air which killed an estimated 15,000 people (some estimates are considerable higher) and effected a further 500,000, 7 Indian Managers were found guilty of culpable homicide due to negligence. They have been sentenced to 2 years in prison.

This has caused outrage in

India

and around the world. None of the

managers who worked for the company at the time were in court.

I hope you all have a lovely week. Try not to work to hard; it’s not good for you.

Oil, Oil Everywhere

2010-06-09T08:00:00.001+01:00

Ah, do you remember how it used to be? Smoking was good for you, women knew their place, and oysters had “never had it so good.”

Oh how times have changed (for the better by the way).

Some progress has finally been made with the massive oil fountain on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico but oil is still pouring into the sea and Tony "The Gulf of Mexico is a big ocean. The amount of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume" Hayward, BP’s Chief Executive, is coming under increasing pressure, quite a lot of it from President Obama. He has said that if Mr Hayward worked for him that, with their poor response to the crisis and as series of slightly offensive statements such as “I want my life back” which has been seen as disrespectful to the memory of the workers who died when the rig exploded, he would fire him. He also wonders whose ass he can/should kick,

A question that will be investigated will be do BP do enough to stop the oil reaching the shore, some think not,

BP has also announced that it is going to set up a new company that will take full responsibility for the clean up operation. It is to be run by an American in an attempt to try and stop some of the anti-British sentiments that have allegedly been following from the US.

Whilst the company will be separate from BP its finances will come from the mother-company.

Is this an attempt by the company, as they claim, to concentrate on the disaster or is it an attempt, by under funding a separate company, to limit the direct financial impact on BP. Only time will tell.

In the meantime oil still pours out of the well and continues to wash up on the coast.

Diana Watch

2010-06-06T15:27:00.000+01:00

“I didn’t get into Vet School so I became a Doctor.”

Has there been a Princess Diana based front page this week? Of course there has,

but the Express also distinguished themselves on Wednesday by completely ignoring the devastation being caused to the Gulf coast of America, the animals and fish that are dying and the peoples whose livings are being destroyed such as shrimp fisherman. They even ignored the rather poor response of BP to the situation, they instead went for the incredibly selfish, self centred approach, how does it effect you pension?

Because BP is such a massive company and makes so much money in profit and pays such massive dividends it has a disproportionate amount invested in it by pension companies. If these people had any decency at all they would put pressure on the board of this company to sort their act out, to make safety and the environment the top priorities for BP rather than the pursuit of naked profit, after all shareholders exist to hold the board to account, in theory.

Despite polluting the Gulf of Mexico and being landed with the enormous bill to clean it up, as they should be, which has all helped to contribute to some of the worst PR that BP has ever had they decided to compound it a bit more by paying a very large dividend to it shareholders, probably to try and keep them quiet.

BP have made some success this week in trying to stop the oil flooding out of it's pipeline (let's try and stop saying “spill” as I spill a drink and that only makes a small amount of mess, this is a little more significant) by cutting through it and managing to fit a cap and they have started to siphon some of the oil away to ships on the surface but still not as much as is leaking into the sea.

It really hasn’t been the most cheerful of weeks in the news has it, what with Israeli forces attacking an aid convoy and the shootings in Cumbria.

What we have learnt this week is that real people behave much better than people who work for 24hr news channels and newspapers. On the whole the members of the public that have been interviewed have behaved with dignity and respect and seem not to have a bad word to say about Derrick Bird, meanwhile those doing the interviewing have pushed for more and more lurid details.

The levels of speculation have also been at stratospheric levels, I have heard about 5 different reasons for why Mr Bird decided to shoot all of those people none of which seemed to be based on any facts.

I was surprised that there seemed to be a psychologist’s viewpoint for every newspaper’s pre-existing narrative, which was nice. “Have you got a point of view that you would like reinforcing with the help of a professional? Then call Rent-a-shrink, we will say exactly what you want us to, as long as the price is right.”

There has also been some awful commentary in pretty much all of the papers with is summed up in this nasty, pointless piece in the Telegraph titled “There's no rush, but can we all agree that Derrick Bird had no business owning guns?” No, no we can’t, hindsight isn’t a clause in the gun licences that he held.

The thrust of this article seems to be that he wasn’t the right sort of person to be owning a gun and by that, and the fact that the “writer” of this piece felt it necessary to describe Mr Bird’s house as “a mid-terrace house in a not very rural English village”, I think he means not posh enough.

So we have had people say that he shouldn’t have had a gun licence because he stole something in the early 90’s, everyone should have a gun and then passers-by could have shot him and now, not posh enough to own a gun. Ah the British media, home of reasoned debate.

Oh and Richard Littlejohn managed to get Eastern European immigration, who he accused of gun smuggling (please don’t click on that link as it is to the Mail’s website and they don’t deserve the traffic), into his piece about it and be rude about the Police Officer who did the Press briefings and Chief Police Officers in general, what a man and by man I really mean uber-twat.

I really don’t want to go on and on about Israel because someone will accuse me of being anti-Semitic which I am not, maybe a little anti-Zionist but even then I would concede that Israel has the right to exist but it does not have the right to occupy parts of other countries or murder people on aid convoys.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza started following the Israeli show of strength that demolished a large number of buildings and infrastructure last year. This includes a sea blockade which may or may not be legal which is what the aid convoy was trying to break.

They were attacked in international waters which many have seen as state-sponsored piracy but if the blockade is legal than they are within their rights to have boarded the ships if they thought that they were carrying weapons etc which is the now standard Israeli Government response to pretty much any situation.

One of the things that are not being allowed into Gaza is building materials, such as cement. This does seem a little harsh as the Israeli conscription army (that, by the way, is the reason that so many Israeli Army operations go wrong, pissy teenagers with guns, although they claim that it was Marines that stormed the boats) flattened a lot of it but it may fall into the hands of terrorists. Now, if the grumpy Ambassador had pointed out on Radio 4 that Hamas regularly build tunnels for smuggling into Egypt and Israel then at least it would have been a relevant argument but he didn’t, oh no, he said, and I quote, “They could use it for weapons”. Really? Could they? How? Are cement bombs as scary as this man thinks? Probably not if I’m honest. If you wonder around your local arms fair it is unlikely that you will see many hand grenades made of cement. They would sort of look like a pebble. Oh no, wait it all makes sense now!

As you know, the reason for Jews demanding their own state is because God gave them that land in the Bible and they believe the Bible to be literally true, well the bits that suit them anyway. Also in the Bible is a story where David (tiny little boy who, for the purposes of this metaphor, or is it an allegory, will be representing Gaza) defeated the massively overpowering Goliath (for this metaphor/allegory Israel) using only……..wait for it……… a pebble! As this definitely happened (the Bible is literally true remember) then it seems that the Ambassador may have had a point. They could fashion little bits of the cement into to “pebbles” and use them as weapons!

The Award for Best Direct Action Against Direct Action,

A couple of weeks ago I told you about a protest in a Dorset village that wanted a by-pass. They were using the pedestrian crossing constantly to back up the traffic. Genius way to make a point I thought but it seems that someone else didn’t.

Superglue has been placed around the button for the crossing so that the villagers can't use it.

Now that is a little rude as it is not just these protesters who use the crossing it is the whole village on a very busy rude but not to worry, it will be replaced and the protests will continue.

The Award for Being a Really Great Car (although the Beetle is my Favourite)

VW Camper van is 60 years old. I love this car/van, I don't know why.

My brother and I stayed in one once that we had borrowed of off a friend of mine and we went to the Reading Festival. Coming back from the festival at 6 o'clock on a Bank Holiday Monday morning on a roundabout on the outskirts of Reading and the clutch went. We pulled up into a B&Q car park and made a cup of tea on the stove. There are worse ways of spending time.

I will own one, one day. Maybe.

The Award for Fake Outrage of the Week,

The Daily Mail does like to be offended by many, many things. It also has certain woman that it is obsessed with, usually because they are successful and they don't approve of that sort of thing. If you combine these to things you have....... Lady Gaga doing her normal stage show.

On the same night as the Cumbrian shootings she was playing in Manchester. Part of the show involves the character she plays throughout the performance being killed. There does seem to be quite a bit of blood. Oh the outrage! Is this the sickest show ever? Does she not know that even Corrie postponed an episode?

Well to be honest she probably didn't know that. I think that it is a little unlikely that Lady (oh yes, first name terms you know) spends her time lying on her hotel room bed, dressing gown on, coke cans in her hair, watching News 24.

And why pick on her anyway? Did they complain about every cinema in the country that showed movies with gun violence in them that night? Like arse did they. Did they complain about the 14 episode of CSI that channel 5 showed that night? Of course they didn't. They only did it so that they could have more pictures of Gaga in their stupid paper.

The Award for Making Excuses and Forgetting That Everyone Playing in the Tournament is Disadvantaged, If At All, In The Same Way,

I am pretty sure that at the last World Cup we had exactly the same story as this. Some people are complaining that the newly designed ball that they are going to be using at the World Cup. It's too light and moves about in the air too much, we did have this complaint at the last competition didn't we?

The new ball is made from 8 panels of synthetic material that is glued together and is, supposedly, a perfect sphere and this is, apparently, very good.

To be honest I just want some good games, oh and while we are talking about the World Cup a brief mention for Theo Walcott. He was taken to the last one for some reason, maybe children flew for free on BA, but he didn't get a game and now that he has come of age, if you will, has he been picked? Has he bollocks.

I hope that you have a good week.

Bad Coffee 3

2010-06-01T18:00:00.001+01:00

I have a question for people who sell coffee for a living (by this I mean the companies not the poor person standing around behind the counter barely earning minimum wage); have you ever actually tasted coffee? I only ask because I have had several very bad cups of coffee this weekend.

I, as you know, have spent the weekend at the Hay Festival and have been paying a lot of money for things but does the cost of things relate to the quality? Hell no.

A standard coffee and a cappuccino that actually managed to taste of nothing at all. Now, come on, you have to be impressed by that. Ground coffee was used and milk (and chocolate dusting powder stuff in the cappuccino) but still they tasted of nothing. How is this possible? Aren't there laws of physics that cover this sort of thing? I really do resent paying any amount of money for coffee that tastes of nothing.

I promise you that I am not being snobbish amount these things, I use instant coffee a lot at home but it tastes of something. When I make ground coffee it really tastes of something wonderful.

The third bad cup of coffee I had this weekend was no real surprise as it was served to me in Pizza Express. A double espresso was ordered and duly supplied to me. If you put 2 teaspoons of instant coffee in a very small cup and added some hot water this is pretty much what my beverage tasted like, so much so that I think that it is strongly possible that this is what happened. At least it tasted of something I suppose but this is not what an espresso should taste like.

The important question is where does this put them on the table? Well let's have a look,

1) TGI’s, Tower Park, Poole

2) Wetherspoons, Dorchester

3) Pizza Express, Hereford

4) Service Station somewhere in the North that I can’t remember the name of

5) Toni and Guy, Dorchester

=6) All the coffee served at the Hay Festival

=6) Slug and Lettuce, Bournemouth.

It wasn't all coffee drinking at Hay though, there was also some avoiding of rain, oh and some people giving some talks and taking questions. The most interesting and entertaining speakers, that we saw, were Andrew Marr, AC Graying, Greyson Perry, Amanda Galsworthy, Robin Ince (actually at a different festival down the road), Giles Coren, Adam Hart Davis and Audrey Niffenegger, fantastic, one and all.

The only downside of the festival for me, if you ignore that tutting and pointy elbows of those who suffer from Middle Class Entitlement Syndrome, was camping. I hate camping. I understand that it is the only way that we can afford to go for 5 or 6 days but what really galls me is that Significant Other really likes it.

We went to the End of the Road festival a couple of years ago she had never camped before. My plan was that we would camp, it would be cold and rainy and rubbish, she would hate it and we would never have to do it again. This didn't work, she bloody loved it.

I do have a question for the people of that area, what is it with you and rude shop names?

Ok, so the owner of the Daisy Chain may not know the sexual connotation of their name and, maybe, the owner of the Scissor Sisters hairdressers may have heard of the band but not that it is a slang term/euphemism for Lesbians but there is no excuse for The Spread Eagle.

The Marie Stopes Advert

2010-05-25T11:23:00.000+01:00

Last night saw the UK's first “abortion advertisement”. It was so controversial that it made Fox “News” in the US where I'm sure it was debated fairly.

It was shown on Channel 4 and was quite late in the evening. The advert was sober in tone and showed that woman have options. In fact it looked a bit like this,

As you can see it is not an advert for abortion, as some would have you believe, it is an advert for an organisation that offer a range of services on reproductive health, most notably advice on contraception.

It is an advert for legally available services so why shouldn't it be advertised? Why shouldn't woman be able to access sensible, dispassionate advice on all aspects of their reproductive health? Well, if you listen to Religious groups and their newspaper writing friends, it will encourage woman to seek abortions. They seem to regard woman as of such weak will that merely seeing a phone number on an television screen for an advice service will make them think “best I terminate this pregnancy then”. They seem to think that a termination is on a par with making decisions about which fast food outlet to use or which insurance comparison website advert you hate the least so might consider using their service. It is not.

The reaction to this advert, or giving woman information on choice as it could also be seen, is, in my view, incredible offensive to woman. It assumes that they are silly and flighty and that they will do anything that they see on television rather than giving them credit for being able to make their own choices on this incredibly sensitive and emotional fraught issue. It seems to be their view that people make momentous decisions like this on a whim, barely considering the consequences, and that just isn't true. The assumption that giving people (I think that we should included men in this too although not to much as ultimately it is the woman's body and therefore her decision) all relevant information will lead to a massive rise in terminations is rather disingenuous to the intelligence of the people of the UK (but not Northern Ireland because the Advert wasn't shown there)

In the end it is possible that a full scale advertising campaign like this for Marie Stopes ,or similar organisations, may lead to a drop in unplanned pregnancies as people will be made more aware of their options as regards contraception but then I suppose that the type of people who don't like this advert probably don't like people using contraception either but as we all know abstinence only programs don't work.

More information is the key in reducing unplanned pregnancies not less, so I for one welcome this development, long may it continue.